The conference will explore and showcase how the uptake of blue and green technologies can prepare Pacific nations for future global challenges. 

Blue (water-focused) and green (land-focused) technology represents a diverse range of products, services and processes targeted at reducing our impact on the planet and improving the sustainable use of our resources. This can include renewable and clean energy, low emissions transport, water and wastewater management, air quality, carbon capture and circular approaches to our industries. 

Developed in partnership by the U.S Department of State and UniServices, the conference is also supported by four other New Zealand agencies, Callaghan Innovation, New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, Tātaki Auckland Unlimited and Ara Ake.

Delegates will get around the table with others who are equally passionate about the kaupapa (principle): Accelerating our transition to a low carbon and climate resilient future, while ensuring positive economic, environmental and social outcomes.  

The conference will include panel discussions, thematic interactive workshops and networking events where innovators and entrepreneurs will showcase and discuss their technologies. There will be the opportunity to build long-term networks and even invest.

As the first United States-New Zealand cleantech event, the conference will create a forum for exchange between leaders and companies in the cleantech ecosystem.

UniServices, a not-for-profit company of Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland focusing on the application and commercialisation of research, is leading the conference alongside the U.S Embassy & Consulate New Zealand. 

Analeise Murahidy, UniServices Director of Strategic Growth and conference lead, looks forward to cleantech innovators from the U.S. and New Zealand coming together. Her relationship with cleantech started four years ago when she held the environment industries business development portfolio. UniServices was contemplating the research and innovation needed to address the climate challenges ahead and had started talking to other groups across the system such as Callaghan Innovation and other local partners brought together by the NZ CleanTech Mission. At the same time, serendipitously, the U.S. Department of State put a call out to host a cleantech conference. 

“We already had the local cleantech partners alongside us and the conference was a great opportunity to showcase New Zealand’s innovation ecosystem while strengthening connections with the U.S.,” says Murahidy. 

New Zealand is the perfect place for such activity to thrive. It has an excellent environmental reputation and much to offer internationally. As a small nation with a highly interconnected research and innovation community, collaboration is something we do wonderfully, says Peita.

“Having quality relationships at a geopolitical level is something we can contribute as part of the greater urgency around climate impact and the transformation and changes that we’re seeing globally.”

Recent central government policies have given prominence to taking care of land, accountability and continuous improvement, he says. It means more than just business success, but also social and cultural elements. 

Professor Christine Woods, Associate Dean at the University of Auckland Faculty of Business and Economics and a programme facilitator at The Icehouse, a suite of business growth programmes, will be running the ‘Women in Blue & Green Tech’ lunchtime session on the first day of the conference.

Woods, the inaugural Theresa Gattung Chair for Women in Entrepreneurship, is also a director of Māori Maps, a navigational tool and information repository for the tribal marae of Aotearoa New Zealand. 

During the session, Woods will invite participants to share the challenges they face as entrepreneurial women, particularly when commercialising new technologies. She’ll use this to inform the discussion and look at what can be done to help, as well as sharing networks and resources delegates may be unfamiliar with.

When it comes to New Zealand’s role in progressing blue and green technology, Woods says our unique environment provides a natural boost to research and uses the marine industry as an example.

“We’ve got such easy access to rivers and the ocean – if you test something across Cook Strait or the Tasman Sea it’s good to go really, almost anywhere in the world.”

Ideally, the lasting effects of the conference will be building networks. It also marks the beginning of a new chapter, where the world is physically more open again. Woods says that while virtual collaboration serves a purpose, it’s important to meet with people to create fertile ground for collaboration.

It’s about seeing connections and pulling the patterns together, she says. It’s a case of “our research may connect with your research; let’s explore this opportunity.”

Part of the excitement is not knowing what the product of that kind of discussion might look like, but knowing it is being fuelled by a group of smart and knowledgeable people, ready to explore different perspectives, says Woods.

“If we had all the answers that would be a little boring, wouldn’t it?“