Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment - Te Kaitiaki Taiao a Te Whare Pāremata

Healthy, wealthy and wise:A health impact assessment of Future currents: Electricity scenarios for New Zealand 2005-2050

Preface

This study is a first for our office. Previous PCE studies have acknowledged the importance of health impacts, but this is the first in which we have used the tools of a health impact assessment (HIA).

Human health and well-being depend on the condition of the ecosystems of which we are a part. Despite huge advances in technology we depend on nature for the basics of life - the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat.

Here we explore the public health outcomes of two scenarios for New Zealand's electricity sector. One scenario follows a business as usual path - the other, smart design and energy efficiency.

It is clear that the overall health benefits are greater under the smart design scenario. These benefits are on top of improved energy security and a reduction in greenhouse gases. Good decisions on energy are good for our climate, good for people's pockets and good for their health.

Summary of recommendations

A key aim of any energy strategy should be the promotion of public health

• The Building Code should have stronger provisions for energy efficiency so that buildings are designed, built and renovated in much more energy efficient ways
• The National Energy Strategy should support microgeneration technologies and energy efficiency initiatives more strongly
• Government funding for education, training and apprenticeship courses that cover energy efficiency and microgeneration technologies should be boosted
• Government funding for energy efficiency should substantially increase. Cross-party agreement beyond the election cycle is needed
• EECA needs greater resources to help vulnerable communities become more efficient and self-sufficient in energy. Government help is needed to ensure rural communities have secure energy supplies before 2013, when electricity companies will no longer have to supply electricity to all consumers
• Regional business opportunities that arise from expanding distributed energy need to be investigated
• Regulations are needed to phase out the sale of unflued gas heaters.

See the full report (right) for the complete recommendations to each Minister.

Fact sheet

The temperatures in possibly up to one-third of New Zealand homes are below the 18°C recommended by the World Health Organisation for healthy and comfortable homes. Also, unflued gas heaters in school classrooms can emit up to three times the nitrogen dioxide of unflued heaters.

These are just two facts from Healthy, wealthy and wise summarised in the accompanying fact sheet.  

(See also: Media release, 7 November 2006.)