2. Economically
Economic sustainability in Southland is helped by businesses such as Venture
Southland and the councils (Southland District Council, Gore District Council
and Invercargill City Council). Businesses such as Venture Southland work
closely with industry sectors, training and educational bodies, and local and
central government agencies to figure out problems in Southland, and
identify regional projects or things they have to undertake to make Southland
better. They also offer support to businesses through the Regional Business
Partner Network, Business Mentors New Zealand, and other business support
programmes; thus making them work better and are therefore more
sustainable for the community. There is a regional sustainable business
strategy named "Sustainable Business in Southland" which was endorsed by
the project steering group in December 2008 and has since been endorsed
by the councils to help support the community. The strategy identifies nine
strategic actions to address regional gaps between business needs and
available assistance. They continue to work together to share information and
experiences, and to better understand business motivations to implement
sustainable practices throughout the whole of Southland. Working with these
other businesses they hope to improve the workings of all businesses within the
area to help increase sales and business infrastructure. From these increased
sales there will be new staff recruitment and thus more work and money in the
area, thus making a more stable economy.
3. Socially
• Venture Southland and the councils have put together a Community
Development planning team which help by providing advice and
assistance to volunteers and community organisations to promote and
lead their own development and community projects, and leverage off
and connect to national and regional enterprises.
• Major amounts of money have been put into tourism in the Southland
area ($368 million in 2003), a lot of which is marketing towards getting
tourists to come to Southland and experience what they have to offer,
and have thus increased the amount of visitors visiting Southland. From
this increased amount of tourists in the area, there have been increased
employment opportunities.
• Invercargill City Council has recently upgraded the transport system
within Invercargill, which has made it more reliable and has helped it
meet the needs of residents and tourists alike; thus made it easier for
people to travel around and get where they need to go.
4. Environmentally
• Environmentally Southland has many practices in place to try and
improve the environmental sustainability of the area. The improvement
of water quality in the region has been a major issue for many years;
Environment Southland has put together a project called “Water and
Land 2020 & Beyond” which will focus on preventing further decline in
water quality, and improving land quality throughout Southland.
• Environment Southland also monitor air pollution and are trying to put
systems in place to take out all wood/coal burning fireplaces in
Southland.
• Wastenet along with Southland District Council and Invercargill City
Council have put an extensive recycling programme throughout
Southland, which includes many recycling stations and centres are
posted throughout the Southland area The recycling put out every
week is processed and if acceptable, moved and reprocessed into
new products, which helps reduce water pollution, greenhouse gas
emissions and damage forest, wetlands, rivers and other places
essential to wildlife
