The main purpose of Auckland Council’s ‘Sustainable Outcomes’ programme is to embed sustainability into the core business of Healthy Waters. They focus on four pillars of sustainability; social, environmental, economic and cultural.

Improving water quality is one of the main objectives that they want to achieve under the environmental pillar.  In the Auckland region, sedimentation of the waterways and our coastal receiving environments is a significant issue, and land use has by far the biggest impact on the health of our waterways.   One of the best ways to mitigate sediment run-off is to plant the land and try to retire unproductive steep farm land.  Planting the land in native plants not only mitigates sediment run off, but increases native biodiversity that sucks up carbon from the atmosphere.

“BioBonds ticks all four of our sustainability pillars.  It allows the planting of natives over highly-erodible farmland and retires this land from unsustainable practices, which in turn reduces sediment run-off.  BioBonds also increases native biodiversity and takes carbon out of the ecosystem. Importantly, the labour used to plant and propagate the plants is sourced locally, helping to create local jobs and sustain the local economy. “ – Tom Mansell, Auckland Council