Our Approach

GoZero believes that it is possible for every citizen, value-based business, community and organisation to make a meaningful contribution to the collective effort to address the climate and ecological crises. We believe that together we can redesign our economy and systems to prioritise care for people and the planet.

Humans are part of nature. Our economy is rooted in nature, but people have designed our economy to prioritise profit and growth over people and the planet. Similarly, many climate solutions have been designed to enable business as usual and the ongoing pursuit profit and growth.

Wealth is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few. Income inequality and disconnection threaten social stability and reduce community resilience.

GoZero's approach is to strengthen individual citizens' and value-based businesses' efforts to reduce their ecological impact, alongside strengthening community and collective connection and efforts to deliver systems change. 

A good economy is good for people and the environment we all rely on. It supports everyone to lead a meaningful, fulfilling life. Authentic, credible action on the climate requires an end to hyper-consumption and approaches that use limited resources wisely and deliver impact at the lowest ecological cost.

We are building ways to empower people and businesses with meaningful individual ecological impact reduction strategies. We seek to strengthen support groups and local businesses that provide value to our communities. We work to empower people in our government to put the wellbeing of people and the planet at the heart of our economy and systems.

Alongside helping individuals and SMEs to address their carbon emissions, we are launching GoZero Challenges to help citizens take collective action to drive systems change.

Many popular technology-based solutions to the climate crisis require significant resources that risk worsening overshoot and transgression of planetary boundaries.

For example, the resources required for EV and home storage batteries require resource extraction that risks significantly worsening freshwater depletion and biodiversity loss. Resource extraction is reportedly responsible for up to 80% of biodiversity loss globally.

Furthermore, the advent of AI not only requires significant new energy production, which prevents new renewable energy sources from displacing fossil fuels, but also causes increased resource extraction and biodiversity loss as well as the depletion of fresh water.

While it is imperative that we urgently reduce carbon emissions, we must find ways to do so in ways that contribute to reducing ecological overshoot and respecting planetary boundaries. New Zealand has significant existing and potential hydropower and storage assets, which can provide a fully renewable grid with far less resource extraction and ecological damage than if individual household renewable systems, for example.

We need to consume less and better, waste less, and innovate to ensure that any technologies developed to address climate change do not do so at the expense of other natural boundaries. 

To generate Carbon Points that can be used to top up reward campaigns and member accounts, GoZero supports projects that deliver measurable positive outcomes concerning planetary boundaries. 

Concerning carbon emissions, we exclusively use high-integrity, Gold Standard carbon credits from projects that reduce emissions, such as those from cookstove projects. Leading climate organisation Project Drawdown, ranks efforts to promote clean cooking as amongst the most impactful global climate solutions. 

These deliver emissions avoidance at source as well as certified co-benefits, such as improved health and livelihoods, under the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

We are also looking to identify credible projects that support the protection of biodiversity, waste and pollution reduction, and water use reduction, and will add these to the Carbon Points system.