Presbyterian Support East Coast (PSEC) is a not-for-profit charity with a proud history of leading social change on the East Coast since 1946. Along with improving the lives of children and their whānau, older people, and disabled people, we are also committed to protecting the environment.
Why would a social service organisation be concerned with environmental issues?
We believe that environmental sustainability and social development are intertwined. Kaitiakitanga, is a fundamental PSEC value that refers to safeguarding both people and the environment. We are committed to reducing negative environmental effects at the same time as focusing on our core work of empowering local people to thrive. The need for a healthy environment is closely related to our vision of communities reaching their potential.
PSEC started down the path towards being a sustainability-oriented organisation in 2020. In 2021, we reaffirmed this commitment by partnering with Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa Massey University’s Business School to guide our sustainability journey. Massey academics in the fields of Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility helped us to identify the organisation’s environmental priorities. The Massey team also supported us to record the organisation’s environmental impacts, including our estimated carbon footprint (CO2 emissions). This data was reported in PSEC’s inaugural Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Report, released in 2023 and available on our website.
Sanja Majstorović, CEO of PSEC, says, “PSEC is grateful to our colleagues at Massey for their guidance around environmental sustainability and ESG reporting. We are proud that this joint effort has produced something that is still quite unusual in New Zealand: an ESG Report by a social sector not-for-profit. We look forward to further collaboration to enhance environmental sustainability at PSEC.”
Our next steps will focus on developing workplace environmental initiatives across our services, Family Works and Enliven.
About Massey’s Sustainability and Responsibility Research Group
The Sustainability and Responsibility Research Group work closely with other academics, businesses and policy-makers to develop leadership, best practices, research, support and training in corporate social responsibility. Their aim is to help the business sector understand the importance of corporate social responsibility and sustainability. Led at the time by Professor Gabriel Eweje, alongside Dr Aymen Sajjad and Dr Kazunori Kobayashi, the group provided pro bono advice and feedback to PSEC. Graduate students Peiwen Chew and Tami Schiefelbein provided research insights and reporting tools as needed.