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Sustainability Assessment and Decision Making for Enhanced Well-being: Mauri Tu, Mauri Ora.

Date and Time: Thursday 18 June, 7-30pm

Venue: Room 3.407 School of Engineering,
University of Auckland,

Speaker: Dr Kepa Morgan BE, MBA , PhD, MIPENZ, CPEng, IntPE(NZ)

Kepa is a senior lecturer in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, and the Associate Dean Maori for the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Auckland, as well as Managing Director of Mahi Maioro Professionals. During his twenty plus years of experience in environmental engineering, many as a Chartered Professional Engineer, Kepa has strived to implement sustainable approaches to engineering solutions: this primarily as a result of his Ngati Pikiao, Te Arawa, Ngati Kahungunu, Ngai Tahu and Waitaha heritage. Kepa renewed his association with the University of Auckland in 1998 to increase the participation rates of Maori and Pasifika students in engineering. His university roles incorporate teaching and research associated with indigenous engineering and technologies and his research has focused on the creation of an integrated decision making framework for sustainability, the revival of indigenous engineering knowledge, and the development of a new structural building material, UKU, fibre reinforced earth composite.

Abstract :
Achieving genuine societal commitment to sustainability is a difficult challenge when society struggles to simultaneously achieve the illusive objectives of sustainability and economic wealth accumulation. Decision making that is dominated by economic imperatives contributes much of this difficulty.

This talk introduces the Mauri Model, a decision making framework that integrates the social, economic, environmental, and cultural well-being dimensions of sustainability referred to in Aotearoa New Zealand legislation such as the Resource Management Act 1991 and the Local Government Act 2002. The Mauri Model is a new decision making framework that adopts mauri (‘integrity’ or the binding force between the physical and the spiritual elements) as the measure of well-being in place of the monetary basis used conventionally for sustainability assessment. The intention is to encourage the pursuit of enhanced mauri (kaitiakitanga) and holistic well-being instead of the pursuit of enhanced economic wealth.

Mauri is proposed as a universal metric for sustainability assessment; the bonding force between the spiritual and the physical; the difference between life and death; the capacity to support life. The decision making framework incorporates the concept of mauri into a series of steps, through which the practitioner is guided to determine whether the mauri of each dimension is being enhanced, maintained or destroyed. The Mauri Barometer assessment allows determination of the long term environmental, economic, social, and cultural sustainability of different courses of action. The use of mauri rather then money as the measure of sustainability avoids the disadvantage of making decisions based solely on economic or psuedo-economic considerations.

The Mauri Model has the potential to improve the cross-cultural understanding of practitioners with respect to sustainability, and empower Indigenous people’s voices within decision making processes. Primary applications of the Mauri Model are in planning and engineering sustainability, although ultimately the focus is well-being and therefore the model has broad appeal including in other indigenous peoples’ contexts especially Te Moana Nui A Kiwa.

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Contact John La Roche Ph 09 528 9759    johnlaroche@xtra.co.nz