The road to resilience: dynamic approaches to climate change

Kia Ora,

As an island nation, it is estimated that one in seven New Zealanders live within a flood-prone area, and with sea levels rising a reported 2.4mm each year due to global warming, the issue has become a growing concern. Not only do the compounding risks of climate change impact us socially and culturally, they place a significant strain on our economy; more than $840 million was claimed in insurance damages and economic losses from floods and droughts between 2007 and 2017. As climate change is increasing the average temperature of our planet, the pace in which icecaps are melting and sea levels are rising will continue to put strain on our economy. 

Previously, we have responded in a reactionary manner to natural disasters caused by climate change – managing the repercussions as they arise then implementing strategies to mitigate future impacts. However, now more than ever we have access to innovative technology that allows us to identify high-risk areas and make accurate assessments on how flood risk might evolve in these areas. This in turn can help us to determine the best actions moving forward to mitigate and manage these risks. 

On June 22nd at 1 pm, LocationTechNZ is hosting the second webinar in its series on climate change and sustainability. This virtual event will focus on sea-level rise and its impact on the banking and insurance sectors – and how location intelligence can be utilised to manage these impacts. Tune in to listen to industry leaders discuss their ideas and understanding of this serious issue. For further information, please check out our event listing and register here. 

Advanced Manufacturing Industry Transformation Plan 

The Advanced Manufacturing Industry Transformation Plan draft was launched for public consultation last week. The draft outlined the importance of advanced manufacturing for Aotearoa, stating that it makes up 10 percent of our economy and is our largest contributor to exports, with export values of over $44 billion in 2020. The draft identified seven advanced manufacturing subsectors, including food and beverage (30.8%); machinery and equipment (20.1%); metals (11.6%); paper and wood (8.9%); chemicals and refining (11.5%); plastics and rubber (4.6%); and other manufacturing unspecified (12.5%).

Government has identified that the advanced manufacturing sector has the potential to increase productivity, produce higher-wage jobs and allow Aotearoa to become a globally competitive low-emissions sector through this new strategy. As part of the Advanced Manufacturing Industry Transformation Plan, attention will be given to emerging Industry 4.0 technology such as IoT, AI, digital twins, virtual reality, and robotics and automation that could assist in improving the use of data and increase productivity and upskill our workforce. 

LocationTech will be producing a submission to highlight the importance of location intelligence alongside the employment of other technologies to improve health and safety for workers, layouts of manufacturing facilities, and supply chain logistics with tracking and transportation. 

We welcome your involvement. If you would like to collaborate on this, please reach out to our team. We also highly encourage you to produce your own submission to increase the awareness and importance of location intelligence in the advanced manufacturing sector. You can find more information on the MBIE website and make a submission here. 

Submissions are due by 5pm, 13 July 2022.

Call For Articles:

Anything interesting being developed in your space? Do you have an opinion on the direction of the location industry and want to produce an insightful thought piece? We’d love to hear your thoughts. To submit an article to be published, please contact our team. 

If you have any questions or want to get more involved with LocationTech, please feel free to reach out to the team.

Ngā mihi

Alison Mackie
LocationTech Executive Director