Empowering Canterbury: defining a role for Environment Canterbury in energy policy

Abstract

Energy has become an increasing concern globally and nationally due to security of supply, rising costs, and environmental impacts. ECan has a legal mandate to be involved in the region’s resource management issues, including energy. However, central government does not make its expectations of regional councils explicit and there is little indication of what the community expects from ECan regarding energy issues. The framework for analysis has been adapted from Integrated Environmental Management (IEM) literature and applied in the form of criteria to an analysis of the current national and regional institutional arrangements for energy management and stakeholder views. The main findings from the IEM analysis are: • There are no overarching common goals provided by central government and a lack of guidance for regional councils. The dominant focus is on is on short-term supply issues at the expense of strategic demand planning. • A comprehensive approach is not taken to energy issues both nationally and regionally. Energy-related issues such as transport and urban design are not considered in their energy context. • There is a lack of ongoing coordination among central government agencies as well as between national and regional level government regarding energy issues. • There seems to be a lack of recognition of the importance of energy issues in regional and local level plans. • The resources committed to energy policy development and implementation at all tiers of government are currently not adequate. ECan should take a facilitative role with energy providers and key commercial and industrial energy users and a leadership role for the wider community and TLAs. Furthermore, stakeholders suggest that ECan should focus its efforts on demand-side management.