Meet the team - Evie Haverkort

12 Oct 2026

In this instalment, we sit down with Evie Haverkort, Resene Principal Advisor on Sustainability, to get the low-down on her varied role.

BW

Your role with Resene is multifaceted, but a major part of it is your work in the sustainability space. How does this aspect of your role play out, are you customer-facing?

Evie

Yes and no. Previously I was a ‘behind-the-scenes’ subject matter expert, but a sales or architectural rep might ask me to meet with a client who is particularly interested in sustainability. Often, they’re trying to understand how seriously Resene takes sustainability. I can help work through the technical questions, explain which accreditations are relevant in a New Zealand context and understand what a customer is actually trying to achieve. 

Last year, I stepped into a more strategic sustainability position - where we next focus our resources for improving our environmental and supply chain impact, and how we communicate our sustainability efforts. A big interest for me is exploring what stronger business to business collaborations we can put energy into, to come up with clever solutions around packaging and post-consumer waste. We have some promising three- and four- way collaborations planned that solve several pressing problems at once.

I also attend conferences and industry groups and produce customer-facing information our salespeople can use.

BW

And in those situations, are you going along in order to upskill your own, and the company's, knowledge, or are you going along to actually be a part of the conversation? Or both?

Evie

Both. There’s always more to learn, particularly with changing policy, scientific research and expectations around sustainability. The challenge is balancing what research and policy says is important, along with what customers consider important and what makes sense in our own context.

For us, sustainability is about where you stand and where you can genuinely influence outcomes, rather than participating in tick-box exercises. There is nothing to lose and everything to gain in sharing knowledge in this space, so we always have an open door when it comes to sharing what we know.

BW

And where are you seeing Resene at the moment? Is it ‘top five percent’? Are they breaking even? Is there room to keep moving forward?

Evie

On several measurable fronts, Resene is quite progressive. We have a good number of Environmental Product Declarations, which require significant research and provide transparency. We’ve also made substantial progress in carbon and waste reduction, as well as running initiatives, such as Eco.Decorator, that can influence the wider industry. 

One area I’m particularly interested in is climate adaptation. As a New Zealand manufacturer whose products touch so many aspects of building infrastructure, what role can we play as communities increasingly face climate-related challenges?

We have long been experts on the unique environmental challenges the New Zealand buildings face that much of the rest of the world doesn’t contend with to as extreme a degree. UV, humidity, and salt exposure effects are all significant, and the temperature that paints cure at is somewhat different between Cape Reinga to Bluff. Climate changes increase the challenges that the building materials that make up our homes and workplaces and national infrastructure will be subjected to, and our products’ primary role is to protect them.

That could involve understanding substrate protection in differing scenarios, buildings being moved or new materials entering New Zealand. We need to anticipate what policy and research will ask of businesses, and position Resene where it can genuinely contribute.

BW

Are you finding that people have a much better idea around sustainability these days, or is there still a lot of education needed?

Evie

There is definitely much more interest. and that interest is generating a more nuanced understanding. Sustainability is complex and people have different expectations of what “good” looks like.

We often get questions about what’s in a can and the immediate impact of a product, but increasingly the conversation needs to be weighted towards the lifetime of a building. A stain might have a lower raw-material impact in year one, for example, but if it needs recoating every two years compared with another coating every five to ten years, the equation changes considerably. 

BW

What are the other facets that make up your role with Resene?

Evie

I joined with a science background – I have a degree in biomedical science, specifically molecular pathology and worked in a commercial science environment before joining Resene – plus experience in sales film, public speaking and events management. When I started at Resene I became involved in product development and commercialisation, then quality management and accreditation.

Our quality and environmental management systems had been somewhat separate, and I brought those together, including internal auditing, reporting, strategic planning and objectives. That led into reviewing environmental accreditations – asking what they would actually change, how they could make us better and what they meant to customers. The sustainability role grew naturally from there to become the one constant part of my position. That said, even that is expanding into the broader ESG space, including our approach to modern slavery prevention across the Resene Group.

Alongside sustainability and the ESG work, I’m involved in redeveloping our product lifecycle management systems, looking at how ideas progress through R&D and commercialisation, and putting people, processes and technology around that.

I also do automation and process improvement projects, including manufacturing systems and reporting. Those skills feed directly back into sustainability. For example, I built an automated carbon-accounting system that collects supplier data, divides it across Resene and our subsidiaries and produces reporting.

I’ve been here a long time and developed a broad range of skills, and they fit together surprisingly well. The various parts of my role ultimately complement each other.

BW

Lastly, what's your favourite Resene colour?

Evie

I’m painting my laundry at the moment and have become slightly obsessed with the colour I’m using; Quarter Truffle. It’s pretty understated – but it’s a really nice understated and goes well with cane laundry baskets.

Published: 12 Oct 2026