Our Movers and Shakers series is spotlighting Aotearoa's leading sustainability professionals transforming the way we design, build and operate our buildings and homes. These are the people leading the charge for a more sustainable built environment throughout Aotearoa.
Sunshine Yates
Sunshine Yates is a waste management and recycling specialist who’s been driving change in the sector for 25 years. Auditing waste streams, finding solutions to reduce waste, designing operational waste minimisation systems and undertaking waste, recycling and behaviour change research and waste education are part of her brief. She heads her own company, Sunshine Yates Consulting, where she works across local and central government, corporates and non-profit organisations.
Has protection of the planet and pushing for environmental solutions always been part of who you are?
It has. I had quite an alternative upbringing (including being named Sunshine) and social and environmental justice were instilled in me at a young age. I’ve also always felt connected to the environment, to plants, animals and the whole natural world, so it comes easily for me to want to be involved in better aligning how humans live and operate with the rest of the world’s cycles and flows.
What were your early career intentions - what inspired your pathway in the waste management and sustainability sector?
I didn’t have very clear career intentions for most of my 20s - travel and adventure were my top priorities! In my late 20s I discovered, quite fortuitously, a course in Environmental Technology. It was the late 1990s and I hadn’t considered you could actually have a career in the environment (how things have changed!). I enrolled straight away, and was in class the following Monday and the rest is history.
During the course I found the Waste Management elective was the most interesting – I got to go out and do waste audits and work with businesses as part of a project – and I got hooked. My very first role was with Zero Waste Network Zealand. I love working in a sector where you can make a difference in the world and help people and businesses find solutions.
On a daily basis what motivates you?
Being of assistance. Doing a good job. Moving the conversation forward when it comes to having an environmentally sustainable, socially just human presence on this planet.
Is there growing awareness of the need for better, smarter waste management in Aotearoa?
The conversation has changed quite a bit over the past 25 years. There’s a lot more awareness of the need to reduce waste and resource use and generally lighten our footprint but while there’s more awareness, our consumer society hasn’t really changed and it’s probably even harder now not to generate waste. Single use items, packaging and short-term use electronics are so entrenched in our day to day lives and however motivated we are to reduce our impact, it’s not made easy for us.
Is Aotearoa making strides with diverting waste from landfill, recycling and minimizing resource use?
I think there are good people all over Aotearoa trying to reduce waste. And we’re up against a system that spews stuff at us and makes it really hard to have a significant impact. The whole economic system leads us to believe that having more stuff will make us feel better about our lives.
We need bold leadership from central government to implement national schemes like a Container Return Scheme, the Right to Repair Bill and even initiatives like standardising glass bottles so we can have return schemes enabling them to be refilled (eg. beer and wine bottles). These systems change the rules so it’s no longer the individual that’s supposed to fight the system, to ‘do the right thing’, instead it creates a system that helps people to do the right thing.
How are we doing with construction waste?
Construction waste is a huge issue comprising about 50 percent of what goes to landfill. Tackling C&D waste is going to require leadership as well as innovative waste management systems and buy-in from the building industry. The NZGBC plays an important role in requesting waste minimisation/diversion from construction projects. Hopefully this will help lead innovation across the wider industry.
What practices should building owners/managers use to deliver better waste management performance outcomes in commercial buildings?
We need to move beyond recycling. We need to look at the materials coming into the buildings and decide if they’re really needed. Simple alternatives like air hand dryers instead of paper hand towels, not supplying single-use cups, plates, and cutlery. Even reducing the use of rubbish bags! It’s crazy how many rubbish bags the average building goes through each week - just to line bins.
Ultimately though these day-to-day waste streams pale into insignificance next to the waste generated in construction, retrofitting and demolition.
What do you hope to see in the waste management space in 2025?
I’d love to see central government leadership! And an ongoing push throughout the building industry to find ways to reduce building material waste - at the construction and demolition stages.
There are also growing opportunities for the community recycling network to redistribute used and unused C&D materials to communities. Instead of sending them straight to landfill, let’s give communities an opportunity to use them.
Your favourite green building?
The Hundertwasser Art Centre in Whangārei. To me it brings together Hundertwasser’s art, his wonderful, crazy design ethics (both of which I love) and his strong environmental philosophy. And it’s a brilliant story of communities coming together to create a legacy for the future.