It seems to me that we have done quite well with the obvious and easy to fix problems – cleaning up sewage discharges and closing old rubbish tips. We are now facing the hard yards – complex and diffuse problems such as loss of biodiversity and the effects of dairy farm runoff on rivers and streams. We can’t just rely on voluntary measures to change people’s behaviour, just as we can't rely on regulation alone – we need a ‘pick and mix’ of incentives, education and regulation.

I can see four types of barrier to progress:

Ownership
Many of us either do not recognise the environmental problems and our role in causing them, or are not yet sufficiently motivated to change behaviour.

Complexity
We are facing increasingly complex and diffuse environmental problems, which are, therefore, more difficult to deal with.

Volume
We have focused mainly on what comes out of the ‘end of the pipe’ and not looked hard at what is going into it. For example, improvements in treating waste are often overwhelmed by growing volumes, resulting in little environmental improvement. The same happens with energy conservation and greenhouse gas emissions.

Compliance costs
There is a necessary balance between our laws and regulations achieving good environmental results, having efficient processes, and allowing people to have their say. The business community has a fixation with the compliance costs of the Resource Management Act and the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. Some of their concerns are justified – but many are not. The focus will be on best practice, and any changes to the law will be based on thorough research rather than anecdote.