Environmental Studies students want a clean, green future for New Zealand
Victoria University Environmental Studies students impress audiences and academics at the Environmental Studies Conference with their future conscious ideas about New Zealand's environment.
Victoria University of Wellington Environmental Studies students, Matt Dicken and Hannah Mollison were awarded first equal placings for best undergraduate presentation at the Victoria University Environmental Studies Conference 2017.
Now in its seventh year, the annual Environmental Studies Conference gives students an opportunity to present research in an academic context, to network, enhance their science communication skills, receive feedback from peers and outside guests and better understand the value of research and critical thinking.
Participation in the conference is a requirement for all 200, 300 and 500-level Environmental Studies students, with an award for the best 300 level presentation, shared this year by Matt and Hannah.
Matt proposed a new model for considering environmental law in New Zealand with his presentation ‘Re-RIGHT-ing our environment: a human rights approach to environmental protection’. He considers a future in Aotearoa where a clean and healthy environment is a basic human right, included in the Bill of Rights Act.
“92 percent of the world’s countries recognise the right to a healthy environment. New Zealand is one of only a few countries that do not see it as an enforceable human right.
“The laws we have at the moment, for example the Resource Management Act, aren’t as effective as having the right to a healthy environment – this would incorporate it into our constitution and entrench it, making it more likely that the government will uphold it.”
Hannah investigated the greenwashing of products in New Zealand, and suggested a method of legitimising genuinely eco-friendly products by introducing a green star-rating system.
“There’s not a lot of regulation around eco-labelling in New Zealand. Greenwashing isn’t directly misleading customers, so it’s not illegal, but there is not a really clear definition behind what many of the common eco-friendly terms mean – so businesses can stick a label on something to try and draw in environmentally conscious purchasers even if their product isn’t green friendly at all.
“There are independent labelling options that businesses can use to verify their product or service as eco-friendly, but this is optional.”
“Contemporary discussions are mostly about making sure businesses give information to support their green claims, or introducing a mandatory labelling scheme so that businesses who want to market as environmentally friendly need to meet certain criteria to be able to do so.
“The solution I propose would potentially draw the two together, making an environmentally friendly labelling system that is similar to the health star rating on food products.
“Customers are starting to distrust a lot of “green” products, especially if they think it’s purely for financial gain. It’s hard to know which businesses to trust – the introduction of a regulated labelling system will take away this confusion and will also hold businesses accountable for their claims.”
Both Matt and Hannah are completing Bachelor of Science degrees majoring in Environmental Studies: Matt’s degree will be supplemented with a conjoint law degree and Hannah’s with a major in public policy. Each plan to build careers in environmental policy after graduating.
“Before coming to Victoria I wasn’t really interested or aware of environmental concerns. Taking Environmental Studies papers made me so much more aware of it. Everyone knows about climate change, but until you study it, you can just ignore it. Now I’m hooked,” says Matt.
The Environmental Studies programme at Victoria takes students beyond the pure sciences and introduces social, cultural and economic perspectives on the environment, something that appealed to Hannah immediately.
“There are so many ways of looking at the environment, like climate change science, and then the programme covers a really broad range of everything else too. The programme is my favourite”.
For more information about the Environmental Studies Conference contact Amanda Thomas at Amanda.thomas@vuw.ac.nz
For more information on Environmental Studies at Victoria go to www.victoria.ac.nz/environmental-studies.