Last updated: 08:15am, 9th Oct 2021
As an essential service, Northpower’s priority is to keep the power flowing to our customers and ensure the ongoing reliability of the network and the safety of our staff and community during this COVID-19 response. Find out more about what to expect during this time and how to contact us.
More InformationProtection of our environment is critical. In everything we do we aim to keep the environment safe.
We recognise our moral and legal responsibility to comply with all applicable environmental legislation.
Our Environmental Management System is certified to AS/NZS ISO14001:2015, which provides independent certification that we are operating our business to world class standards for environmental management.
This ensures we:
As a part of maintaining this accreditation, our external certifying body Telarc, conduct a re-certification audit every three years and surveillance audits in the years in between.
Our Environmental Management Framework provides Northpower’s requirements for environmental management ensuring that all practicable processes and procedures are in place to assess the effect our operations have on the environment and to implement appropriate controls to avoid, where practicable, or minimise those effects.
The Environmental Management Framework provides an umbrella document that supports a framework of operational documents that ensure effective environmental management across Northpower and its operations.
We have recently revised our environmental management framework to ensure we are considering all environmental aspects of our operations including interactions with local authorities and iwi, legislative and compliance obligations, hazardous substances and waste, environmental risk management processes and hazard identification.
Our environmental and sustainability programme for FY21 focussed on our measurement and reporting framework for carbon emissions.
We're implementing strategies to reduce unnecessary travel (e.g. virtual meetings), reduce waste to landfill (by introducing a range of recycling and waste diversion initiatives) and the continued investment in the electrification of our fleet.
Our electricity network team is trialling the recycling of end-of-life concrete poles through a Northland quarry, salvaging the steel, with the concrete crushed and used for internal roading projects. To date the trial has diverted ~34 tonnes of concrete and steel from landfill.
We've also recently engaged with the Digital Wings Trust. IT equipment is refurbished and redistributed to community organisations across Aoteoroa keeping electronic waste out of landfill while also developing digital capability in the community.