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Are you passionate about sustainability? Concerned about the impact of our changing climate on your home, business or region? Or maybe you’re curious about the current challenges and local efforts in place to tackle them? We are extremely lucky here in Wānaka to be the home of Aotearoa’s first and biggest sustainability festival, welcoming all to join, share, learn and work together towards a thriving future.
Wao is a not-for-profit organisation based in Wānaka, making ripples across Aotearoa. By working with locals across a range of sectors, their mission is to educate, inspire and enable communities to reduce their impact, accelerating us towards a carbon-zero future.
Wao Aotearoa hosts a series of events throughout the year as well as the annual Wao Summit, featuring five days of kōrero, tours and masterclasses. Through working with key groups like youth or the business community, Wao Aotearoa supports them to develop a strategy for a sustainable future and then works towards mapping out that vision.
If you’re not familiar with Wao or the week-long Summit event, stick around.
Arna Craig, Wao Co-Founder, talks about how Wao started and what the Wao Summit is.
‘Wao’ is the Māori kupu | word for forest. Forests have intrinsic diversity, natural regeneration and climate regulating abilities. In this instance, the forest refers to different parts of an interlinking system, which is the image Wao aspires to emulate – an interlinking system in our communities, including tourism, building, food, hospitality, youth and business.
WAO is also an acronym: working as one. The name reflects their core values of partnership and collaboration, and focusing on a regenerative approach to future thinking.
The annual Wao Summit is coming up from 27 – 31 October across Wānaka and Queenstown. Held over five days with kōrero, tours, and masterclasses, Wao Summit brings together those who are passionate about sustainability, regeneration, climate change, and climate action. The Summit aims to explore a 360-degree approach to fostering social and environmental change in our communities.
Featuring an extensive list of experts, here is the full list of good humans who will be gracing the stage at this year’s Wao Summit.
Join Wao in exploring the opportunities, challenges and solutions shaping the future of business, climate, artificial intelligence, energy, food systems and community wellbeing.
With 40+ events taking place over five days, Wao Summit focuses on sustainability and regenerative future across many disciplines and industries. There is literally something for everyone.
Browsing the full Summit programme, you might find yourself overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of events to attend. Wao have broken down each event into four themes:
Each theme is represented with its own colour and has its own day, so you can see sessions by the theme or topics you’re interested in.
The full Wao Summit 2026 programme:
Wao Summit offers business owners an opportunity to revolutionise their approach to business, by learning how to operate with greater purpose and sustainability. During sessions, you’ll learn about cutting-edge sustainable practices that can enhance profitability and contribute positively to society and the environment.
Think of it as one of the most relevant and important conferences you’ll attend. It’s a chance for meaningful growth through workshops, expert panels and networking sessions. Designed to enable business owners to implement impactful strategies that drive success, all while fostering a sustainable and ethical business culture. Sounds pretty good right?
