Doing the right thing under the new RMA settings means asking the right questions before work starts, keeping controls in place while work is underway, and responding quickly when conditions change, writes Mountfort Consulting Director Fiona Mountfort. Fiona is giving a presentation at The Civil Contractors Conference in Wellington with Fulton Hogan’s National Environment Manager Dale Eastham on August 13 at 11am.
For contractors, the Resource Management Act has often sat in the background: important, sometimes inconvenient, but not always treated as a frontline business risk. But that’s changing fast. As New Zealand moves through another phase of resource management reform, environmental compliance is becoming a boardroom, project management and site-level issue all at once.
Some of the most significant changes are already here. Maximum penalties for RMA offending have increased sharply, with companies now exposed to fines of up to $10 million and individuals up to $1 million.
RMA fines and infringement fees are also no longer insurable, meaning a business cannot rely on its statutory liability cover to absorb the financial hit. Insurance may help with legal defence, expert advice or some remediation costs, depending on the policy, but the fine sits squarely with the offender.
That shift matters. It changes the calculation from “what will this cost if something goes wrong?” to “can we afford for something to go wrong at all?”
For contractors working around earthworks, stormwater, vegetation clearance, waterways, contaminated land, dust, noise, waste, rural operations or infrastructure projects, the answer should be obvious: compliance can no longer be treated as paperwork for someone else.
Fines not the only risk
The figure of $10 million gets attention, but the real risk to contractors is broader. A serious breach can stop work, trigger an investigation, require expensive expert reports, damage relationships with councils and clients and put future tenders at risk.
Councils also have stronger tools to recover investigation and compliance costs from proven offenders. A breach can create costs on several fronts at once: legal, operational, commercial and reputational.
Contractors should also pay close attention to compliance history because the reforms allow regulators to give more weight to previous non-compliance when making decisions.
A company with a pattern of abatement notices, infringement notices, enforcement action or convictions may find that history follows it into future consenting and enforcement decisions.
For businesses relying on repeat work, preferred supplier status or public sector contracts, that record can become a commercial liability.
The inability to insure against fines also increases personal and governance pressure. Directors, managers and site leaders will need confidence that systems are more than a folder on a shelf.
If a crew is unclear about consent conditions, sediment controls aren’t maintained, discharge limits are ignored, or subcontractors are unmanaged, the business may be exposed, even if the breach wasn’t deliberate. Under the new settings, “we did not realise” is unlikely to be reassuring.
Where contractors get caught
Many RMA problems begin with ordinary site decisions. Rain arrives before sediment controls are checked. A stockpile is too close to a drain. A subcontractor starts work outside the approved area. Dewatering is discharged without the right treatment. A consent condition is misunderstood because the person who priced the job is not the one supervising the job.
None of these scenarios is exotic, but under a tougher enforcement regime they can become very expensive.
The reform environment also creates transition risk. Rules, consent pathways and enforcement expectations are changing, and more change is coming.
Contractors who rely on old templates or habits, or assumptions from previous projects, may miss new requirements. This is especially risky for businesses operating across different regions, where council approaches and plan rules vary. A practice accepted on one site may not be acceptable on another.
Doing the right thing is a business strategy
Keeping up with the RMA changes doesn’t mean every contractor needs to become a lawyer. However, it means environmental compliance should be built into how work is priced, planned, supervised and documented.
Before starting a project, contractors should understand the consent conditions, permitted activity rules, site constraints and reporting obligations. Those requirements should be translated into practical site controls that supervisors and crews can understand.
The RMA reform programme isn’t just a planning system story; it’s a compliance risk story. Higher fines, uninsurable penalties and stronger enforcement tools mean environmental breaches can no longer be treated as a manageable cost of doing business.
Good records matter. Daily checks, toolbox talks, photos of erosion and sediment controls, maintenance logs, incident reports and communication with councils can help show a business took reasonable steps.
If something goes wrong, early reporting, prompt containment and genuine remediation may make a real difference to the outcome. Silence, delay or poor records can make matters worse.
Contractors should review contracts and subcontractor arrangements. Who’s responsible for environmental controls? Who monitors compliance? What happens if a subcontractor causes a breach? Are reporting obligations clear?
In a higher-penalty environment, vague allocation of responsibility is dangerous. Clients may increasingly expect contractors to demonstrate environmental competence before awarding work, not after a problem occurs.
Training is another practical safeguard. Site teams must know the environmental “red flags” for their work: sediment leaving site, dirty water entering drains, unauthorised vegetation clearance, works in or near streams, excessive dust, unexpected contaminated material, noisy activities outside permitted hours, and any activity that differs from the approved plan. The earlier these issues are recognised, the easier they are to fix.
The message for contractors is simple. The RMA reform programme isn’t just a planning system story; it’s a compliance risk story. Higher fines, uninsurable penalties and stronger enforcement tools mean environmental breaches can no longer be treated as a manageable cost of doing business. The contractors who will be best placed are those who make compliance visible, practical and routine.
Doing the right thing under the new RMA settings means asking the right questions before work starts, keeping controls in place while work is underway, and responding quickly when conditions change. In the new environment, that is not just good environmental practice. It is good risk management, good client management and good business.
Achieving consistent temporary works control