NZ061125 Beyond Carbon to Nature - an Introduction to Planetary Accounting

Join ISEP New Zealand for an online event: Beyond Carbon to Nature — An Introduction to Planetary Accounting

Date & Time: 6 November, 12:00PM –13:00PM NZDT | 5 November, 23:00PM–1:00AM GMT

In 2009, a group of internationally renowned scientists identified nine non-negotiable environmental limits for the planet – which they called the Planetary Boundaries. In 2009, we were exceeding three. Now, in 2025, we are exceeding seven.

The Planetary Boundaries is groundbreaking science as it quantifies the magnitude, and urgency of our global environmental crisis; like the 1.5C limit for climate change, but for nature. However, the Planetary Boundaries do not make sense at the scales we make decisions.

The Planetary Accounting Network (PAN) is a charitable trust whose purpose is to inspire and enable people to operate within the planet’s environmental limits. PAN use a scientifically peer-reviewed framework called Planetary Accounting, that translates the Planetary Boundaries to any scale of activity. Lauren Boyd, engineer and Senior Planetary Accountant, joins us to give an introduction to Planetary Accounting. Using recent case studies Lauren will share how Planetary Accounting can be used to assess and communicate the holistic environmental performance of businesses, projects, products, and services, to manage environmental tradeoffs, and support informed decision-making. This webinar is open to all, but is especially relevant for business leaders, key decision makers, and sustainability managers - from those just getting started on sustainability, to those ready to look beyond carbon to the Planetary Boundaries. Book your place today!

Key reasons to attend this event

1. Planetary Accounting - what is it, and why is it valuable
2. Environmental risk; non-carbon impacts you need to know about
3. Communicating environmental performance without greenwashing
4. How to measure your impacts on nature

Speaker

Lauren Boyd - Planetary Accounting Specialist, PAN

Bio

Lauren started her career in engineering, working as a geotechnical engineer in NZ (for Beca Ltd) and the UK. After walking the length of the South Island in Aotearoa New Zealand along Te Araroa trail (the long pathway) in 2022 she broadened her focus to sustainability advisory for the built environment. At Beca she led a project looking at setting 1.5C aligned carbon targets for infrastructure projects, co-ordinated a project looking at the development a carbon emissions baseline for the NZ water sector with associated carbon reduction guidance, and co-developed guidance for Engineering NZ on applying circular economy principles to projects.

Through her experience in past roles, she realised we need to look beyond carbon, and measure impacts across broader environmental issues' and use data and science to help us make good decisions. This led her to join the Planetary Accounting Network (PAN) in 2024. At PAN she has delivered a wide range of Planetary Accounting assessments, for both products and organisations, and developed PAN's training programmes for schools and practitioners. She leads PAN's Planetary Accounting for the built environment workstream; making it easier for the construction sector to understand the environmental impact of materials to support informed design, facilitate comparisons between products and buildings, and enable transparent communication of overall performance.

This event is being organised by ISEP New Zealand but is open to all who are working in the environmental or sustainability space. Come join our online discussion group page on LinkedIn.

This webinar counts as 1 hour of ISEP recognised CPD. You can add this to your ISEP CPD. Please check our CPD guidance pages at www.isepglobal.org/skills/cpd for further details on how to do this.