Last month I was among a lucky group of community and business leaders who heard in Christchurch how we can help save the earth and also save money.

The Redesigning Resources conference here was a far cry from the normal run-of-the-mill talkfest where ideas are in huge supply and actual achievements are rare. This conference was more of a “donefest”, where people and groups who made a commitment to sustainable change two years ago reported back on how they were going and what they had done.

The Christchurch City Council was one of eight pilot groups that had made the earlier commitment to move toward a more sustainable way of doing things.

In coming months I will talk about some of these achievements in more detail.

The other pilot groups were Orion, The Warehouse, Untouched World, the Recovered Materials Foundation, the Shire of Yarra Ranges (Australia), Macpac, and Landcare Research.

Importantly, the Canterbury Employers Chamber of Commerce was a co-host of the event.

The Chamber’s role was evidence that Christchurch business leaders are taking a positive leadership role toward developing a more sustainable way of doing business It showed that at this stage of the new century the best way forward toward building a more sustainable way of life for us all looks likely to come from a loose alliance of business, the community and local and central government.

It is, I believe, a hugely important point.

While householders have a major role to play in reducing household waste, the reality still is that the major producers in this area remain businesses of various shapes and sizes. Some businesses are not only showing tangible support Of equal importance for us all, I think, for real sustainable development, they are taking major lead roles in showing us how it can be done.

They are also often showing that, along the way, major savings can be made.

One of the guest speakers, via video conferencing from the United States, was Ray Anderson, the head of Interface USA. Interface is the world’s top commercial flooring manufacturer.

Ray started his business empire in the normal way until he discovered the huge ecological and environmental costs of doing business that way.

He has since embarked on a mission to make Interface a sustainable corporation by leading a global effort to pioneer and achieve sustainable development.

His company has customers in 110 countries.

It has manufacturing plants on four continents.

This massive organisation has been making huge efforts to move away from ecologically damaging ways of working and into more earth-friendly ways of doing business.

And, while it has still got a long way to go, Interface has already stacked up savings of over US$100 million a year by cutting down on waste and other polluting ways.

Ray Anderson has helped pioneer a way of improving profit while improving the global ecosystem. He has a complete and overwhelming commitment to both saving and improving the health of our planet.

As you may have guessed by now he was a hugely inspiring and motivating speaker.

Even more surprising to those who like to cherish their prejudices was the presence of the regional president of BP for South Asia and Australasia, Greg Bourne Greg told us how BP has broken ranks with some in the oil industry and not only agreed publicly that global warming is an issue but also gone on to an action plan that aims to help reduce the problem.

This includes such tangible actions as turning increasing numbers of their petrol stations over to solar power generation and a huge research and development programme for solar and alternative fuel development.

Several of their newer stations in Christchurch are already solar-powered, saving hundreds of tons of various non-renewable resources each year.

It was inspiring to see a major executive of a leading fossil fuel company show such a strong corporate commitment toward steering their company in a more sustainable direction.

Possibly it was earlier examples such as this that prompted Untouched World founder and head Peri Drysdale to say of the first Redesigning Resources conference that it had led to a huge shift in her thinking about sustainability. It had moved her from regarding the issue as “this is someone else’s problem” to “this is my problem’’.

Of equal importance for us all, I think, this conference has also given us the strong lesson that the problem is not beyond us if we work together to develop workable solutions.

Finally, perhaps the most important message of all from the conference was that it pays to leave your prejudices at the door if you really want to help build a more sustainable world.