An indigenous and transformative intermediary to the circular economy in south and west Auckland.
About
Eco-Pā are places and spaces owned by Māori and Pasifika entrepreneurs and their partner businesses, institutions, and investors. Eco-Pā is a very different type of industrial manufacturing space. Eco-Pā is where you will find a collective dedicated to developing, doing, and making things in circular, net zero carbon, reciprocal ways.
Eco-Pā is also a research and development kaupapa designing out waste, realising and recognising the full value of the resources used. This R&D is integrated into prototypes for new industry standards, workforce development, and workplace design for a truly advanced economy.
Eco-Pā is an intermediary. It is coordination, collaboration and teamwork across the system to develop relationships so that demand can be stimulated to create and shape the markets the circular economy needs, as well as make ready and pipeline of investment needed to fund the project.
Missions:
To build foundations for an equitable transition to climate change, so opportunities and benefits reach south Auckland.
To realise the full potential of the Māori and Pasifika economy because of their alignment with values.
To back Māori and Pasifika entrepreneurs as pioneers of the economy of mana.
Vision:
To develop industrial pā across Tāmaki Makaurau will take time. We aspire to be able to reimagine and regenerate all 3,500ha of industrial zoned land, existing and planned. We must develop the first site as a Centre for Circular Advanced Manufacturing. We need to leverage this to bridge the strategic with the practical, develop the right relationships and network, and model and market circular advanced models of doing business, making things, owning and managing things. We need to engage our future leaders, our rangatahi because our success or failure is what they will inherit.
We can only get so much ready from a laptop and hui. The meaningful kōrero and talanoa will lead to shared risk-taking and significant investment. We now have some experience developing circular models from scratch, and we have made commitments to existing capability-building programmes.
We can now get ready relatively quickly, as outlined in this readiness programme.
Why:
Māori and Pasifika entrepreneurial and transformative leaders have the cultural competencies to apply the mental models we need to solve the complex challenges of catalysing this radically different circular economy. They have the intercultural competencies to guide whole industries.
Aotearoa is uniquely placed to do this, and Eco-Pā is being developed as a learning platform, disrupting the thinking, demonstrating the doing things differently, and developing the pathways and partnerships to influence. In backing Māori and Pasifika entrepreneurial.