Just like our Executive Forum in Wellington last month, our Future Voices Forum held two weeks later delivered a healthy dose of optimism and excitement for the first Natural Infrastructure Plan for Aotearoa New Zealand. The plan is being developed by The Circle with the support of Partners and other invested stakeholders.
The Future Voices Forum is an important step in the plan’s shaping and development. It brought together members of our Rangatahi Advisory Panel alongside more than 40 emerging leaders from across our partner base. The ask of them was to imagine what Aotearoa could look like in 2055 if we placed natural infrastructure at the centre of how we invest and how we plan.
Those taking part were spread across roles and locations with consensus that wetlands, dunes, forests, mangroves - natural systems - must be treated as core infrastructure, not as nice-to-haves.
The rangatahi involved consider nature-based solutions to be critical to our economic prosperity and our resilience: reducing insurance risks, strengthening our key economic sectors, and underpinning growth in trade.
As one participant put it, “Instead of paying for disasters, we could be paying for resilience.”
Finance professionals in the room reinforced that markets are already shifting in this direction with sustainable investment and lending practices increasingly rewarding nature-positive businesses as lower-risk and more bankable.
But perhaps one of the most powerful provocations came from one rangatahi voice:
“Our biggest infrastructure project might just be teaching people to value of nature and the eco systems that hold us up.”
The diverse perspectives and insights shared at the Future Voices Forum add further weight to an already important Natural Infrastructure Plan, ensuring it reflects both current expertise and the aspirations of the next generation. These contributions will directly inform the final plan, to be launched at our Fenwick Forum at Parliament on 4 March 2026.
Thank you to everyone who has contributed so far!
