This benchmark series provides an annual overview of Aotearoa New Zealand’s sustainability profession, outlining the roles, skills, remuneration, development needs, and workplace contexts of sustainability professionals. It tracks year-on-year trends to help organisations, practitioners, and aspiring professionals understand how the field is evolving across sectors and role types.

Sustainable Business Network (SBN) is a New Zealand-based, membership-driven social enterprise promoting sustainable business practices. It supports over 400 organisations with tools, training and resources to reduce waste, cut carbon emissions and regenerate nature across Aotearoa.

Sustainable Business Council (SBC) is a New Zealand membership organisation mobilising more than 130 leading businesses — spanning all sectors — to deliver sustainable growth that benefits business, society and the environment. SBC supports corporate leadership on environmental and social responsibility, champions climate-action and regenerative nature practices, and helps organisations integrate sustainability into governance, operations and long-term strategy.

Auckland University of Technology (AUT) is a public research university in Auckland, New Zealand known for practical, career-focused education, offering 250+ undergraduate and postgraduate programmes across design, business, health, engineering, social sciences and more. With modern campuses, strong industry links and hands-on learning (internships, real projects, workplace experience), AUT helps students gain real-world skills before they graduate.

Oxygen Consulting offers specialist sustainability consulting services across carbon, climate and nature, sustainability strategy and advisory, disclosure and reporting, audit and assurance, and capability development. Serving organisations in New Zealand across diverse sectors, it supports measurement, strategy formation and robust sustainability-governance frameworks to drive meaningful business impact.

Aurecon Group is an Asia-Pacific based design, engineering and advisory firm offering integrated services across infrastructure, water, energy, transport and property sectors. With a strong presence in Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia, Aurecon focuses on digital innovation, sustainability and full lifecycle asset solutions to help clients deliver high-performance projects.

This 2022 report by the Responsible Investment Association Australasia and KPMG examines how investors in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand practise stewardship. It identifies proactive, strategic, and reactive approaches, analyses barriers such as capability and structural limitations, and highlights collaboration, engagement, and policy advocacy as key tools for advancing ESG outcomes.

ResponsibleReturns is a directory that enables users to find independently certified ethical, sustainable or responsible banking, superannuation and investment products.

This report summarises global sustainable investment trends from 2016 to 2018, noting a 34 per cent increase to USD 30.7 trillion. Japan saw the fastest growth, while Europe remained the largest market. The leading strategies were ESG integration, exclusionary screening, and shareholder engagement across major investment regions.

This report summarises the 2024 benchmarking of New Zealand’s responsible investment market, assessing 70 investment managers using RIAA’s Responsible Investment Scorecard. It finds NZ$207 billion in responsible assets, representing 56% of total funds, and highlights expanding ESG integration, transparency, stewardship, and impact investing alongside strengthened regulation and market maturity.

This report summarises how Australia’s Sustainable Finance Taxonomy could be expanded to agriculture, forestry and land management, proposing draft criteria for biodiversity protection, sustainable water use, and pollution control. It aligns with global biodiversity goals to guide investment and lending that support nature-positive outcome.

This report summarises draft guidance from New Zealand’s Financial Markets Authority on ethical investment disclosure. It sets expectations under the FMC Act, warns against greenwashing, and outlines principles of clarity, substantiation, consistency, and management of third-party involvement to improve transparency and accuracy for investors.

Financial Markets Authority (FMA) is New Zealand’s independent regulator overseeing financial markets. It promotes fair, efficient and transparent markets, ensures quality financial advice and protects investors. FMA develops regulation, supervises licenced entities, enforces compliance, supports innovation and aims to enhance trust in NZ’s financial sector.

This tool provides interactive visualisations and tabular data of country-level trade flows in raw materials (imports, exports, trends). It enables comparisons across years, commodities and nations, and cites metadata and definitions.

The Aotearoa New Zealand Climate Standards series is a benchmark series issued by the External Reporting Board. It sets out the framework for climate-related disclosures, including governance, strategy, risk management, metrics and targets, adoption provisions, and general requirements. The series provides entities with a consistent structure to report climate-related risks and opportunities.

External Reporting Board (XRB) is an independent Crown entity in New Zealand that develops and issues accounting, auditing & assurance, and climate reporting standards. XRB ensures trusted, high-quality, integrated reporting across public, private and not-for-profit sectors to promote transparency, accountability and support informed decision-making.