Our Commitment
As a company we are an integral part of daily life in New Zealand and we’re acutely aware that our every action, good and bad, has a marked impact on the wellbeing of our communities — today and in the future.
At Contact, sustainability means making every decision, every action, count for the long run. It means using Our Tikanga to make the best decisions for today and tomorrow. Decisions our kids would be proud of. It’s about making sure we look after their future, New Zealand’s future.
Renewable, reliable energy, responsibly delivered
In recent years we’ve invested in building our renewable, flexible and reliable generation portfolio which has helped us to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions from generation by 33% since 2018. We have developed new geothermal power stations, which, alongside our existing geothermal and hydro power stations mean that our generation is now more than 80% renewable. We maintain thermal generation options for when the market needs extra energy, and we’ve also got New Zealand’s only gas storage facility which adds flexibility to our portfolio. We also hold resource consents for other geothermal projects should the need for further electricity in the market be required.
Positively part of our communities
Looking after our ecosystems
We’ve made a commitment to take care of the natural resources that we rely on so that future generations of New Zealanders can continue to enjoy them too. It’s all about balance and we’re working to maintain that balance every day.
Our operations can have wide-ranging impacts on water, rivers, birds, animals and plant life. The range of different impacts in different regions means that we have site specific management plans for local biodiversity. Across our sites in 2022, we caught 4,832 pests, planted 55,206 trees, transferred 227 tuna (freshwater eels) downstream in the Clutha catchment (including 5 migrant tuna) and 198kg of elver upstream of the Roxburgh Dam.
See how the eel transfer programme works
Contact has also planted more than 125,000 native trees over the last three years. Since our restoration and protection programmes began, we have protected over 130 hectares of land. This includes planting, fencing and an increased focus on pest management. We continue to support local community groups such as Kids Greening Taupō to help build awareness and love for our environment in the next generation.
Climate change is a significant global issue with the potential to adversely affect the environment, people and the economy. Through our investment of around $1.7bn in building our flexible, reliable and renewable generation portfolio, Contact’s generation is now more than 80% renewable. This has resulted in a 33% reduction in our greenhouse gas emissions from generation since 2018.
Water
In 2010 we built the award winning Wairākei bioreactor to help us reduce our impact on the Waikato River. The bioreactor turns hydrogen sulphide, which is harmful to freshwater ecosystems in high concentrations, into harmless dissolved sulphate particles using natural enzymes. This was an innovation developed by our team right here in New Zealand.
Human Rights at our core
Respect for human rights is woven into our culture: the way we treat our people, our customers and our communities.
Contact is committed to ensuring that our workplace is safe and welcoming for everyone, and to avoid negative human rights impacts in connection with our operations, products and services.
We work hard to be transparent in relation to human rights issues in all areas of our business. You can see our Human Rights Policy here.
Responsible Procurement
We are committed to Responsible Procurement practices in partnership with our suppliers and believe that when we each take action to improve sustainability, we enable mutual success. Working together to support sustainable progress is fundamental for our long-term success, and it’s good for the planet.
Financial Sustainability
We have more than 63,000 shareholders and 1,000 bondholders around the world including many Kiwi families, investment firms, professional investors and superannuation funds. Each of them rely on us to deliver sustainable financial returns now and into the future.
Increasingly investors are focusing on climate change and its potential impact on the environment, people and business. In recognition of this and our commitment to sustainability, Contact has undertaken market leading sustainable finance initiatives. In 2017 Contact was the first company in New Zealand to establish a Green Borrowing Programme, in 2019 we set up a sustainability linked loan and in 2020 we became the first company in the Asia-Pacific region to list our bonds on Nasdaq’s Sustainable Bond Network.