In the midst of the cherry harvest, Mike Casey has received another cherry on top.

As business editor Sally Rae wrote: 

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He was happy to open the gates to the orchard, saying for a long time, the primary sector in particular had been seen as climate negative, rather than positive.

But here was a primary sector entity which was leading the charge on electrification which ultimately drives down fossil fuels and lowers farm input costs — ‘‘that gets people curious’’.

Mr Casey was never a preacher — ‘‘you must never tell people what they should be doing’’ — rather, it was about showing people what he was doing and they were welcome to ‘‘take from this whatever you want’’ — ask as many questions and take as many photographs. Being more co-operative rather than competitive was when change was ultimately shifted.

... Being an entrepreneur, it was all about problems to solve and right now there was no bigger problem to solve than the climate problem. He was buoyed by the reception to Rewiring Aotearoa’s message, particularly that it was reaching a lot of different types of Kiwis.

Often climate action was not pro-business but he was a businessman so it was about pairing good smart business with climate action, and his goal was for New Zealand to be seen as a ‘‘beacon of light’’ on how to do that.

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