BERL – New Zealand metal industry’s – a strong contributor to living standards

Description

This free report prepared by leading economic research and consultancy company Business and Economic Research Limited (BERL) provides an assessment of the contribution of the members of HERA, and the metals industry more generally, to wellbeing in New Zealand. The contribution is assessed in terms of the Treasury’s Living Standards Framework (LSF).

BERL’s previous research for HERA has focused on procurement and balanced decision-making, particularly in regard to the triple bottom line. This report builds on the sustainable approach that HERA advocates through its R&D programme, its capability register, the HERA Foundation Charitable Trust, and more recently the Sustainable Steel Construction Charter. It aims to raise the profile of the broader economic contribution that HERA members make to a range of areas such as quality assurance, quality compliance, design integrity, and intellectual property.

The report shows that our industry’s contribution to wellbeing in New Zealand is considerably greater than the conventional metrics reveal. By describing and illustrating how the industry helps to develop and sustain each of the four capitals in the LSF, it demonstrates that we promote wellbeing in a much broader sense. It also highlights that the value of the New Zealand metals industry is broader than a single metric in a snapshot year, such as the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) generated through the manufacturing of reinforced steel, the outputs of the metal fabrication industry, or employment in heavy engineering. Metals, particularly steel, are a commodity. However, Research and Development (R&D), business development initiatives and market needs impact on how this commodity is produced and used, and more recently the impact it has on the environment.