Next Wave 2026: Sustainable businesses struggle to turn innovation into growth

Detailed summary

New Zealand has a promising cohort of sustainable businesses with innovative products and strong growth ambitions, but too many are struggling to move from proving their ideas to…

From humble beginnings in a tin shed, founder Saia Latu, above, and his business partner Joe Vagana have built TROW into a deconstruction industry leader. Photo / Dean Purcell

Sustainable innovators have the ideas. Now they need the capital and customers to scale, writes Fran O’Sullivan

From mushroom-based packaging to salvaged construction materials and crops strengthened by ultraviolet light, New Zealand businesses are developing solutions to environmental challenges.

But short-term investment horizons, policy uncertainty and weak mainstream customer awareness are holding back their growth.

New Zealand does not have a shortage of sustainable business ideas. What it lacks is a system capable of helping enough of them grow into commercially successful businesses.

That is the central message of Next Wave 2026, the Sustainable Business Network’s annual barometer of sustainable innovation, produced in partnership with the University of Canterbury.

This is the second annual assessment of this emerging sector. It examines the performance, confidence and operating conditions of businesses selected as finalists in the 2025 Sustainable Business Awards’ Disruptive Innovation category.

The report paints a picture of a sector brimming with ambition, developing new products and preparing to expand, but struggling to secure the finance, customers and predictable regulatory environment needed to realise its potential.

Two-thirds of the 42 businesses surveyed were confident about their growth prospects. Yet their financial performance remains uneven, and the gap between promising innovation and commercial scale is proving difficult to bridge.

Opening of the article, excerpted from NZ Herald Business. To read the rest, open the article on the publisher's site.