Climate Change Action Plan
ECCT recognises that climate change poses a serious and immediate risk to our communities and requires urgent collective action to create positive change for our future generations.
As a philanthropic Trust, ECCT has the significant ability to help support communities across our six regions understand and mitigate climate change impacts, as well as make substantial changes to our own internal operations and investments.
Our Journey
ECCT signed up to the Funders Commitment to Climate Action in November 2021 and in December 2022 adopted its own Climate Change Action Plan to come into effect in April 2023.
Under ECCT’s Strategic Plan 2023-2030 Kaitiakitanga | Environment is one of five Pou | Pillars. ECCT has committed to becoming a climate responsible (Tiakina te ao turoa) organisation through the following goals: –
- Embedding climate responsibility into our culture and ethos and measuring our internal greenhouse gas footprint, making this information publicly available and looking to reduce and offset this with the aim of being carbon neutral by end of 2023.
- Using a robust and evidence-backed approach to assessing all new investments to ensure that the Trust’s investment portfolio’s carbon exposure is reduced over time with the long-term goal to be carbon neutral by 2050 and to achieve a 50% reduction in emissions by end of the 2024 financial year.
- Supporting our communities across the Eastern and Central regions to understand and mitigate their climate change impacts and grasp opportunities through embedding climate change as a foundational principle across our funding framework.
In July 2023, ECCT officially became a Toitū net carbonzero certified organisation in line with ISO 14064 1.
ECCT is proud to take science based action to sustain the life of this place, our people and our future.
Our current footprint is 25.59 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents. This is the start of our carbon reduction journey, as we work to do our part to keep global temperatures within a 1.5 C increase.
While we take action to reduce emissions, we are proactively offsetting our impacts through the purchase of carbon credits from Hinewai Reserve, which has the additional benefit of social co- benefits.
Tikanga Māori and Te Tiriti o Waitangi will sit at the heart of our Climate Action Plan and will ensure that our journey of moving to a low carbon future will be a tika transition.
ECCT’s Climate Action Plan will be a living document that contains measurable targets, is monitored quarterly, and reported on in the Annual Report.
Funding support in this space will be available by April 2024 though some assistance may be available earlier.
