Who can use NZ2100 and KiwiGrow™

NZ2100 is designed to be used by anyone or any group interested in successful, sustainable business, strong communities, and healthy ecosystems. These people may be leaders, or they may be people looking to identify a niche for contributing to a better world. NZ2100 is universal and valuable to people who investigate, monitor, lead, manage, evaluate, or otherwise contribute to the well-being and sustainability of systems and groups within society and the natural world. You could be a forester, an ecologist, a school principal, a company director, a local government planner, or politician, or virtually anything else. However, NZ2100 is most useful to managers and leaders, and those who motivate change, as it provides a simple framework for considering their entire "domain area" , and a means for defining visions and performance measures that can be the focus of management efforts to improve sustainability, strength within the market, and value to people and ecosystems.

How to use NZ2100

KiwiGrow uses NZ2100 to structure the process of engaging and building understanding, identifying issues and risks, developing visions, goals and performance measures, and making decisions involving tradeoffs and synergies. The first step involves deciding what the seven system qualities mean for you, in the 28 performance sectors of the matrix.

For example, if you were a city planner, you might start from a set of definitions that look something like those below, and use them as a starting point for dialogue with the community to clarify needs and desires.

Example of expanded definitions for NZ2100 sustainability language

	Social	Economic	Environmental	Cultural
Nurturing	Safe communities, caring attitudes towards people and especially children. Providing essential needs for families.	The economic environment supports new business establishment and relocation through availability of workforce, land, financial and other resources and support services.	The environment provides for natural regeneration, and spawning and other breeding grounds are protected or being restored. Exotic predators are controlled.	The community supports cultural regeneration and rejuvenation.
Supportive	Communities are respectful rights of citizens, including minorities. They provide equal opportunities for advancement and individual fulfillment and value fairness.	Businesses are supported through appropriate networks and services, possibly via "ecosystems" of businesses related via inputs and outputs. Tax and rating environment is favourable.	The environment is biologically diverse, and the number of threatened species is minimised. A wide variety of habitats supports diversity at the micro and macro levels. Pests and weeds are minimised.	The community respects and supports cultural diversity. Individuals are able to live fulfilling lives without abandoning cultural heritage.
Contributing	People within the community are contributing positively to society through paid and unpaid activities. Unemployment and waste of human resources is low. Negative contributions including crime are minimised.	Businesses contribute positively to the economy and community welfare in the broadest sense. Businesses are resource efficient, and produce minimal pollution and waste that is not recycled.	The environment provides a variety of "ecosystem services" such as clean water, water storage, and amenity, which benefit communities directly or indirectly. Emissions of pollution and harmful biological materials such as weeds and pests are minimised.	Cultural diversity provides benefits to the community. Cultural groups contribute positively to society.
Responsive	The community and individuals within it respond to challenges such as crises, and areas of need. The skill base is high and people have the tools and technologies to be effective.	Businesses have resources to respond to increases in demand, or to downturns.	The environment responds positively to demands placed on it. Ecosystems are inhospitable to exotic biosecurity threats. Systems recover diversity after disturbances such as floods or erosion.	Cultural groups respond to challenges and opportunities and have key skills and other human capital that enable them to flourish.
Stable	The community is strong, has a sense of its own past, and respects traditions. Leaders ensure it is not vulnerable to rapid change to its disadvantage.	The local economy is strong and not vulnerable to major cyclicity. Many businesses are well established and provide community economic leadership.	Ecosystems and populations are stable, and not being irreversibly degraded. The abiotic environment is maintained within healthy limits.	Cultures are strong and not dying out. People maintain and respect their traditions and heritage.
Adaptive	The community acknowledges need for change, learns from experience, and has robust learning institutions that serve its needs.	The economy responds to change in economic fortune without major layoffs. Entrepreneurs maximise benefit from new opportunities.	Biological systems reach new stable equilibria following change in environmental circumstances, while maintaining nutrient and other cyclic processes.	Cultures adapt to or accommodate social, economic and environmental change. All cultures have access to research and learning systems.
Directed	The community has a sense of its own future, and major projects are well coordinated to achieve shared goals. Leaders have vision.	The economy is sustainable, and not founded on a resource base or market that is shortlived. Businesses and leaders have a sense of direction and progress.	Biological systems are generally self sustaining and require minimal inputs from outside the community. Human inputs are local.	Cultural groups have a sense of vision and purpose. Leaders are strong and visionary.

With these definitions in place, you may be close to defining your vision, or just one part of the matrix may help to crystallise the essence of your vision. Or it may simply open up your mind and make you realise how much you need to engage with and understand the system that you are managing, or working within. Only then will you be in a position to start to think about visions, goals and performance measures. Creative Decisions can help you with this process of building understanding, as well as creating the necessary management structures and tools, which can include decision support systems that help you to evaluate development or management options in terms of the NZ2100 framework. You may be faced with prioritising multiple projects: the NZ2100 framework provides a means for systematically positioning each project according to its impact on the overall vision and goals.

Three Steps to Change the World

NZ2100 is a universal framework. You can think of using it in 3 interrelated steps:

1. Improve health and sustainability of your team, group, or organisation by adopting NZ2100 and KiwiGrow™.
   
   
2. Improve health and sustainability of the immediate neighbourhood or ecosystems where you are involved, by using KiwiGrow™ processes to guide how you develop the activities of your business, organisation or group.
   
   
3. Improve health and sustainability of landscapes, cities and regions, by building relationships with others committed to KiwiGrow™ and NZ2100 values.

Thus, a city council that wishes to advance sustainable development, should first build understanding and commitment to NZ2100 within its own organisation. Likewise, a community group must understand what is necessary for them to be sustainable as a group, before they can truly understand the meaning of sustainability for the wider community, and bring about lasting improvements. Of course, these three steps are not rigidly sequential. A team or group can develop through its work with clients, or a city council can develop an internal sustainability ethos in part through the process of seeking change within the community. However the Council will be much more credible if it successfully introduces NZ2100 internally first. Always, NZ2100 and KiwiGrow™ are about developing, enhancing, and improving health, wellbeing and sustainability.