Sustainability reporting by New Zealand wineries

Many organisations have realised the need to engage in sustainable practices, and the benefits from doing so. This engagement includes communicating sustainable practices with stakeholders through web pages. The quantity of web page reporting varies by winery and by reporting category, as does the ease of reading (i.e. readability). This chapter discusses sustainability reporting and sustainability in the New Zealand wine industry, introducing readers to the nine key focus areas of Sustainable Winegrowing New Zealand (SWNZ), of which only one focuses on social sustainability. The quantity and readability of web page reporting of 433 New Zealand wineries are examined with differences found between the four reporting categories—social sustainability reporting, environmental sustainability reporting, social and environmental sustainability reporting, and sustainability reporting. There is room for improvement in the readability scores of all the reporting categories, although social sustainability reporting is slightly more readable

Governance and the loss of biodiversity

Most of the world's biodiversity occurs within developing countries that require donor support to build their conservation capacity1. Unfortunately, some of these countries experience high levels of political corruption2, which may limit the success of conservation projects by reducing effective funding levels and distorting priorities3. We investigated whether changes in three well surveyed and widespread components of biodiversity were associated with national governance scores and other socio-economic measures. Here we show that governance scores were correlated with changes in total forest cover, but not with changes in natural forest cover. We found strong associations between governance scores and changes in the numbers of African elephants and black rhinoceroses, and these socio-economic factors explained observed patterns better than any others. Finally, we show that countries rich in species and identified as containing priority areas for conservation have lower governance scores than other nations. These results stress the need for conservationists to develop and implement policies that reduce the effects of political corruption and, in this regard, we question the universal applicability of an influential approach to conservation that seeks to ban international trade in endangered species