Greenpeace New Zealand Weblog

Organising chaos

Well, a couple of months after lodgement down at Auckland City Council, our building consent has finally been approved. This is a major step forward for the development at Akiraho St for Greenpeace. It gives us the green light to get moving on the plans and start to timeline when the organisation can expect to be in its new home.

Although we are running behind the original and very ambitious timeframe we had at the beginning of the year we’ve still managed to gain resource consent, building consent and be in possession of the full fitout drawings in a timeframe that would have pleased a professional developer. Not that it’s a competition of course but the faster we get in the less impact we’ll have on the organisation’s ability to campaign and minimise the budget, so this is a very important step.

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It’s more than 15 years that I’ve now been working for Greenpeace, and normally my work involves making the near impossible high profile projects happen on budgets that are way too small with human resources that are far too few. This is the lot of the Environmental NGO dependent on supporters money. The need to be accountable to our membership is high and we have to squeeze as much out of your dollars as we possibly can. We cannot do this work without the dedication and commitment of our volunteers and of the generous support of the wider constituency that supports the work that Greenpeace is doing on behalf of the planet.

The new office refit for the new Greenpeace HQ here in Auckland is a project that is no different to this, and although we are not working in the field in Indonesia or the Southern Ocean the same principles apply. We cannot do this sort of field work without the offices. Read more »

Akiraho Street April 2008 (C) GREENPEACE / TAYLOR

We’re cleaning out the inside of the building - lots of dirty work but we’ve had lots of good keen volunteers down to help so we’re making good progress and it’s not costing too much.

Primarily the building was chosen because of it’s proximity to Mt Eden Railway station (right next door), proximity to major bus routes, several on Mt Eden Rd as well as Symonds st and finally as the CBD, very close. Size was also a factor. Greenpeace NZ has grown in size over the last 10 years and continues to do so. The new building offers enough space to combine the functions of the campaigning and operational arms of the organisation and leaves a bit of room to move.

One of the best things about refitting an old building like this is that it gives us a blank slate to work with. We’re now in the happy position of being able to do some ECO innovation that was either infeasible or just plain impossible in our old rented space in Valley Road.

Here’s some of the things we’re trying to fit into the budget. Read more »

The new Greenpeace NZ building in Akiraho Street, Mount Eden, Auckland April 2008 (C) GREENPEACE / TAYLOR

Hi there, My name’s Rob Taylor, I normally work as a Greenpeace international action and logistics coordinator or project manager, I was asked at the beginning of the year to consider doing a couple of contracts with the NZ office. Now this suits me just fine, being based in NZ and having most of my work happen overseas always increases my carbon footprint and takes me away from my family, two very good reasons why I increasingly dislike going overseas.

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