Kate Meyer on founding the Planetary Accounting Network

Mm.

There's a lot, a lot there-

[laughs]

... that you're thinking.

Your brain's going [laughs] a lot.

Um, just some...

We'll get back in a second to that, but just thinking, I'm thinking about, I've just been recently challenged about the role that government has to play in, you mentioned incentives, and, um, this conference that we were both just at, the Sustainable Brands, um, Ōtautahi or Aotearoa, um, one of the people was talking about how do we incentivize people to stop using, uh, petrol cars and move to electric cars? And one way would be to impose large, um, registration fees so that if you want to use a petrol car, that's fine, but you're gonna pay $20,000.

You know, like it's a massive disincentive to using it.

It's just gotten me thinking, like, what's the role there for government to actually ... helps the transition? I don't know.

That's a not even a real question, but have you got any thoughts on that?

Yeah, I mean, it was amazing to see how, how things happen in Singapore.

It's a really different government to New Zealand-

Yeah

...

so they, um, can make bigger changes, um, without that sort of swinging three-year pendulum.

But the, the combination of a mandate of that minimum standard and incentivizing that top end-

Mm

... did, like, absolutely transition the built environment there.

They went from not really being a player in the sustainable building space to be, being really at the forefront of it.

You know, they call it the biophilic city now, which is because they have so much greenery on their buildings.

Right.

So one building...

They have this measure in sustainable buildings of the volume of, uh, well, for Singapore, for the volume of, uh, greenery on the, on the site with the building there compared to the volume that there would've been if it had been in its original form as rainforest.

Oh, I see.

So, you know, if it's a one-to-one, they haven't really had a ne- negative on in terms of that metric.

Mm.

There's a lot, a lot there-

[laughs]

... that you're thinking.

Your brain's going [laughs] a lot.

Um, just some...

We'll get back in a second to that, but just thinking, I'm thinking about, I've just been recently challenged about the role that government has to play in, you mentioned incentives, and, um, this conference that we were both just at, the Sustainable Brands, um, Ōtautahi or Aotearoa, um, one of the people was talking about how do we incentivize people to stop using, uh, petrol cars and move to electric cars? And one way would be to impose large, um, registration fees so that if you want to use a petrol car, that's fine, but you're gonna pay $20,000.

You know, like it's a massive disincentive to using it.

It's just gotten me thinking, like, what's the role there for government to actually ... helps the transition? I don't know.

That's a not even a real question, but have you got any thoughts on that?

Yeah, I mean, it was amazing to see how, how things happen in Singapore.

It's a really different government to New Zealand-

Yeah

...

so they, um, can make bigger changes, um, without that sort of swinging three-year pendulum.

But the, the combination of a mandate of that minimum standard and incentivizing that top end-

Mm

... did, like, absolutely transition the built environment there.

They went from not really being a player in the sustainable building space to be, being really at the forefront of it.

You know, they call it the biophilic city now, which is because they have so much greenery on their buildings.

Right.

So one building...

They have this measure in sustainable buildings of the volume of, uh, well, for Singapore, for the volume of, uh, greenery on the, on the site with the building there compared to the volume that there would've been if it had been in its original form as rainforest.

Oh, I see.

So, you know, if it's a one-to-one, they haven't really had a ne- negative on in terms of that metric.