8:30-9:00AM

Lake Front, Wānaka

Join us down at the Wānaka Lake Front for the opening Wao Summit for 2023!

9:00AM-4:00PM

Rippon Hall, Wanaka

The roadmap to regenerative tourism for the district has been drafted. The next step is how to put this into action in a full day Hui.

Brought to you in partnership with Wanaka Tourism and Destination Queenstown.

12:00-5:00PM

Rippon Hall & Lake Wānaka Centre

Join us for lunch at Rippon before going into a 3 hours workshop focusing on mitigating governance risks and accelerating environmental leadership, beyond carbon and so much more.

Brought to you in partnership with the Planetary Accounting Network and the Institute of Directors.

12:00-5:00PM

Rippon Hall & Lake Wānaka Centre

Join us for lunch at Rippon before going into a workshop designed to help people to lead with purpose and impact. Together we’ll explore how organisations can be governed to have a positive impact as well as delivering on their potential. The session will be practical, grounded, and enjoyable.

Brought to you in partnership with Grounded Governance and the Institute of Directors.

12:00-5:00PM

Rippon Hall & Lake Wānaka Centre

Join us for lunch at Rippon before jumping into the workshop at the Lake Wānaka Centre. The Climate Fresk is an interactive, collective-intelligence based workshop. A 3-hour workshop where you will learn how to address the effects of climate change in a cause-and-effect collage. It enables you to take a step back and understand the systemic nature of the challenges.

Brought to you in partnership with The Climate Fresk for Directors and the Institute of Directors.

3:30-6:00PM

Lake Hayes Pavillion, Queenstown

The news in 2023 has been full of communities from Greece to Maui to the Hawkes Bay facing wildfires, floods and other natural and climate disasters. The first line of response is community. This workshop looks at the practical steps we need to take at the grassroots level to prepare.

Free Event (registration is essential)

5:00-7:00PM

Lake Wānaka Centre

Join us for a panel conversation about the role of leadership toward a low emissions future in Aotearoa New Zealand. This conversation will bring together directors, business and community leaders to discuss a number of key questions.

This event is hosted by the Institute of Director’s Chapter Zero New Zealand initiative and Grounded Governance as part of the Wao Summit 2023.

6:30-9:00PM

Lake Wānaka Centre

What does the climate have to do with my business? How do I understand what I should be doing? How will climate goals and regulations impact how I operate? This expert panel discussion explores these key issues through a compliance and finance lens.

Hosted in partnership with Environmental Accounting Services and the Wānaka Business Chamber.

6:30-8:30PM

Lake Hayes Pavillion, Queenstown

Hosted by Gareth Hughes from the Wellbeing Economy Alliance Aotearoa, the Rethinking Economics session seeks to look beyond GDP and explore what an economy where people and nature thrive looks like, and more importantly, what steps are need to put this into action.

9:00-10:30AM

Lake Wānaka Centre

What does the road to flourishing biodiversity look like? In this talk, Paul Kavanagh and Leslie Van Gelder of the Southern Lakes Sanctuary share their story of landscape scale biodiversity restoration where the whole of the Queenstown Lakes District is our shared sanctuary through the uniting of multiple community-based conservation projects.

Hosted in partnership with Southern Lakes Sanctuary

9:00-11:00AM

Te Atamira, Queenstown

Jam-packed with high energy songs, actions and theatre, this hard case one-woman show is a dynamic way to share achievable tools to reduce single waste on our planet and offer our tamariki tools to step bravely into the future.

Free Event (registration is essential)

11:00-12:00PM

Lake Wānaka Centre

Can nature based solutions provide the answers to some of our most pressing issues – climate change, biodiversity loss and freshwater quality? Dr David Norton will discuss how New Zealand farms play a critical role and how on-farm biodiversity can help build resilience against increasingly severe weather events at farm and catchment levels.

Hosted in partnership with WAI Wānaka

12:00-1:30PM

Lake Wānaka Centre

Along with efficiencies and behavioural change, new technology has a role to play in reducing emissions to limit warming to 1.5°C. In this session, we will hear industry leaders talking about fossil-fuel-free farming practices, hydrogen-powered freight, and low-emissions recreational boating. Dr. Carly Green will be facilitating a conversation with Eric Laakmann (Seachange), Mike Casey (Forest Orchard) and Anthony Jones (HW Richardson).

Hosted in partnership with Environmental Accounting Services

1:00PM-3:00PM

Soil puts food on our plates, purifies our water, protects us against flooding and combats drought. It’s also key to tackling climate change as it captures and stores vast amounts of carbon.

Join us on farm in the beautiful Maungawera Valley, along with soil experts Sam Lang, Founder of Quorum Sense, and Nick Collins, Agri Sea, to learn strategies for creating healthy soils, integrating these into farm systems, and the benefits of doing so.

Hosted in partnership with WAI Wānaka

2:00-3:00PM

Lake Wānaka Centre

Dr. Tim Crownshaw from EECA hosts this session which is sure to blow your minds. What does the future look like for energy production? What is happening in the world and how will it effect us? This is a must attend lecture.

2:00-3:30PM

Te Atamira, Queenstown

In a world filled with information bites, how do you cut through the noise to get your message across? In this session, Nic Turner from Mainstream Green demystifies the basics of behaviour change and looks at how to incorporate these principles into event organisation and marketing.

(2:00-4:00PM) CANCELLED

APOLOGIES: THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED

Sick of having to replace stuff too soon when appliances break down, phones slow down or tiny parts fail and can’t be replaced? Consumer NZ Head of Testing Paul Smith gives us the lowdown on how long things really last, whether planned obsolescence is a real thing, and why the shift to repairability and durability is essential to the circular economy.

5:00-6:30PM

Lake Wānaka Centre

Join us for a peecha kucha style talk from some of our climate and biodiversity heroes making a difference.

You are guaranteed to come out of this session inspired and hopeful for a thriving future. Click through to check out the line-up of speakers.

The butterfly effect bar will be open for drinks and something to eat! Excellent way to transition from work to weekend.

5:00-6:30PM

Te Atamira, Queenstown

Looking at how to live lightly but don't know where to start? Sick of all the plastics in your life? Changing household habits is a challenge? This session is for you.

7:00-9:00PM

Lake Wānaka Centre

What does a resilient 21st Century community look like? Energy use, migration, food, what do we need to prepare for. Join the big guns as we dive deep into the future.

Rod Oram will be facilitating a discussion with a panel of experts to tease out what our future may look like.

7:00-8:30PM

Te Atamira, Queenstown

Marine Scientist and microplastics researcher Veronica Rotman will explore the incidence and impact of microplastics from the mountains to the sea.