Getting Greater Environmental

Bang for Your Buck

Environmental Funding & Philanthropy in

Aotearoa New Zealand

Dr Ed Hearnshaw, Chief Economics Advisor

Parliamentary Commissioner

for the Environment• Independent of government of day, provides

advice to Parliament as whole

• Approach is to target issues that are stuck or

would benefit from independent research

• PCE has undertaken considerable amount of

research on climate change & biodiversity in

recent years

Importance of environmental

philanthropy to New Zealand

What does environmental

philanthropy look like

Supporting community

biodiversity conservation

How does the Government

choose who to fund

Looking into the Freshwater

Improvement Fund

How have philanthropists made

investment decisions

Short fall in environmental

funding

Getting more environmental

bang for your dollar

How we often fund

environmental projects

How we might fund projects

through an economic lens

Cost utility analysis!

Investment prior to CUA Investment change due to

CUA

Nationally

endangered

orchids

Maintenance funding

allocated on an annual basis

across a range of threatened

species of which these were

only a segment. The

available funding allocated

on a proportional basis

across all species without

regard for the level of

investment required to

improve conservations status

Cost utility analysis identified

actual investment required for

improving conservation &

environmental outcomes for

the 11 species. This larger

level of funding has since

been allocated over a three

year investment cycle.

Philanthropy & Impact

Investing

Source: Skees Family Foundation

Crowdfunding

Private-public partnerships

Source: Graeme Dainty, Department of Conservation

Green Bonds

Questions to ponder

• Is the idea of philanthropic support for ‘biodiversity

hubs’ to coordinate community group efforts useful?

• What experiences have you had in finding out the

value-for-money of environmental funds?

• How could new impact investing efforts (e.g. green

bonds) be leveraged to increase funding for

environmental projects?