Mel Carroll often goes missing in action from her B:HIVE Level One desk. She takes off on luxury retreats around New Zealand and soon to return to Bali and Niue. But before you get all envious and pin her tan and healthy looks on a chilled life, it’s because she’s working.

Mel is the founder of Wellness Retreats New Zealand – as well as the resident Smales Farm yoga teacher (on Tuesdays from 12.30-1.15pm). Her story is familiar – top performer in the wild world of advertising and graphic design, until she burned out.

Mel says her mid-20s diet and lifestyle as well as her work added up to be diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome. After taking some time out to focus on her wellbeing, Mel ventured overseas to work on super yachts for three years. Then it was on to Bali where she managed a women’s premium wellness retreat. Along the way she became a certified yoga instructor, completing her 200-hour Vinyasa training in Seville, Spain.

Her grownup self then returned to New Zealand and 2014 started up her business. “Yes it started as predominantly women who were keen to get away, often with friends, for a premium luxury holiday with yoga, fitness, good eating, massages wellness workshops and all the good stuff,” Mel  says. “But I have noticed more and more men are joining our retreats either solo or with their partners now. And since the pandemic a wider range of people are investing in their holistic health.”

“Corporates too are investing in their people to not only retain but keep their good talent healthy. They are including it in personal development plans, with half a day planning and the other half learning about nutrition, mindfulness, resilience and how to keep yourself fit in your body and mind.”

Wellness Retreats New Zealand has a collective of around 40 health practitioners it calls on to cover its retreats here and overseas and its corporate days.

“I call it adventure meets wellbeing,” Mel says. “Yes, you can have an alcoholic beverage with dinner on our Franz Josef and overseas retreats (wellness is all about balance) and sometimes get on your cell phone or laptop. But I encourage people to leave their devices behind, or only use them for an hour a day.  I think a lot of modern-day stress and mental health issues, especially with young people, can be sheeted back to electronic devices. It’s good to turn them off – disconnect to reconnect.”

Over the past six years Mel’s rolled out wellness programs for prominent companies such as HSBC, PwC, PwC Foundation, 2degrees, ANZ, BNZ, Deloitte, Deloitte Fast 50, Hyundai, World Masters Games, AIA, Caci Clinic, Stride Property and Yellow.

Hook into the B:HIVE yoga or talk to Mel about her retreats …if you can catch her at her desk!

B:HIVE business Mycare has got its ice hockey sticks and maple syrup ready following its recent launch into Canada.

It is the digital care organisation’s first bridge over international waters, and comes after years of building to nationwide success. Mycare, located on Level 2 of the B:HIVE, is New Zealand’s largest online community of people seeking or offering various types of help at home.

“The premise behind it is reimagining what homecare looks like for people with disabilities, older aged care needs or wider needs, enabling people in the home to thrive. What we discovered was homecare had a very ‘push’ approach, where carers would be sent out without the person in the home understanding who was coming into their home,” CEO Matt Owen says.

“So we redesigned what homecare could look like; centred around the person at home having a choice as to who comes into their home.”

Mycare is one of the first in the world to bring this concept to life, Matt says, and the platform has since grown to have more than 14,000 qualified and vetted carers registered throughout New Zealand.

The B:HIVE- based organisation’s launch into Canada came after not-for-profit organisation Manitoba Possible in Winnipeg reached out to collaborate with Mycare, after they discovered the kiwi organisation had achieved what they were trying to do themselves.

“They believed in the same model as us, that the person in the home should have the right to choose who comes into their home,” Matt says.

Mycare has provided the software and platform for the Winnipeg-based organisation to connect the disabled community with local support workers.

Since launching in October, Care Possible – has bloomed on Canadian soil, already providing support to people with care needs and connecting the care in the home ecosystem.

For example, a dad in Toronto is now able to be a part of the care journey for his disabled son and daughter-in-law, who are in Winnipeg, Matt says.

“Because of the nature of the platform, it enables family, friends and carers, all to be able to connect to the platform and the care system. So, for this dad, even though he lives thousands of kilometers away, he is able to be a part of the care journey for his son and his son’s wife,” Matt says.

This is only the beginning of Mycare’s international outreach, Matt says.

Mycare also delivers the technology behind Gumboot Friday, providing a platform for young kiwis to connect directly with counsellors nationwide.

They also launched Te Heke Mai in 2019, a coaching platform supporting New Zealander’s into the work or on a pathway of their choosing.

Stop by and say hi anytime to Matt and the Mycare team on Level 2.

Image: Some of the Mycare team based in the B:Hive, from left: Mackenzie Amer, Nikki Harris, Matt Owen and Emilie Nebulot.

One of the B:HIVE’s own has scored bigtime in the delivery of the FIFA World Cup in Qatar.

Leading Design Professionals (LDP), a lighting and electrical engineering company based on Level 4 of the B:HIVE, designed the lighting around the Hamad International Airport in Doha, Qatar.

This project included a lighting master plan and detailed design of all exterior lighting, including 200km of roads and carparks around the airport, three major intersections, and the Emir’s private terminal area with custom designed equipment to provide the airport site with a “unique identity”, senior lighting and illumination engineer Ben Cullen says.

LDP is a lighting design company which focuses mostly on designing for the built environment and infrastructure, while considering and reducing the impact of bad lighting on the natural environment and wildlife, Ben says.

“LDP is really about limiting the impacts of bad lighting, by designing good, well-controlled lighting,” he says.

LDP’s work in Qatar is not the only major international project its team of expert designers and engineers have undertaken.

They also designed the relighting of the 100,000-seater Olympic stadium in Sydney, Australia, alongside various other sport stadiums including the Avantidome Velodrome in Cambridge, including full electrical and backup power integration design, and North Harbour Hockey Stadium.

LDP’s success has been recognised this year with five awards for three different projects.

The company designed the relighting of the streets of Dunedin City, a project for which it won three awards: the IESANZ Award of Excellence: Energy Efficiency and a Commendation, and the Royal Astronomical Society of NZ Award of Excellence.

Senior Engineer Ben Cullen said they worked on the Dunedin City Council (DCC) project for eight months, which included the design and placement of 14,000 lights.

Not only did they reduce the energy usage of the DCC by over 60%, they significantly reduced “sky glow”, Ben says.

“We reduced the sky glow by using warm white streetlights, making sure they focused downwards and didn’t throw light into the sky. This helped the local ecology including birdlife, and reduced light pollution, which the DCC was really focused on,” he says.

LDP were also awarded IESANZ Awards of Commendation for a new cycleway linking Glen Innes and Tamaki Drive, and the Viaduct Harbour precinct.

The lighting project in Viaduct Harbour saw LDP retrofit and redesign the original lighting along the promenade with LED while keeping the original bespoke feel.

LDP worked with the original design which focuses upwards into a dome which reflects it to the ground, creating a “soft, ambient” effect, Ben says.

The Real Learning team replaced its training room microphones with winners’ medals recently, after a win at the New Zealand Association of Training and Development awards.

The learning development company, based on Level 1 of the B:HIVE, took home Best Leadership Development Programme at the national awards night.

Heidi Lance, Real Learning’s founder, developed a safety leadership development program for Fletcher Building after the construction company reached out following on-site incidents.

“The purpose of the leadership safety programme is to help instigate a safety culture shift that starts with the leaders and results in improved safety outcomes,” Heidi says. “It’s an acknowledgement that people come first, and all injuries can be avoided.”

Since Real Learning implemented its programme there has been a “significant” positive change in processes within Fletcher Building Heidi says. The company has recorded 32% reduction in injuries, 75% reduction in serious injuries, 90% of sites being injury free and two more business units remain injury free.

“We worked with Fletcher Building for six months to design this programme,” Heidi says. “It has gone from me facilitating it, to the executive leadership team, to then filtering down through the whole company.

“The business has trained more than two and a half thousand leaders across Australia and New Zealand since we started.”

The same leadership development programme was also named as a finalist in the Australia and New Zealand Safeguard Safety Awards.

“It’s great to get recognition for all the hard work the team has put in and it also shows the strength of the relationship between us and Fletcher Building,” Heidi says.

Binance, one of the world’s largest digital asset platforms, has created a cell in the B:HIVE.

But if you go to Level Four to take a peek, you would be excused for doing a double-take. Ben Rose, Binance’s first general manager for New Zealand, used to be in the hive at CodeHQ as CCO.

A Londoner by birth, Ben came to New Zealand 19 years ago to shoot a TVC for Tourism New Zealand. He loved it so much he stayed converting from advertising to sales and marketing and into the digital world.

Now he’s setting up the local entity for Binance, wading through registration as a financial service provider, rules for external disputes resolution, reporting to Police on anything suspicious and becoming an anti-money laundering reporting entity (AML).

There are people, including journalists, who are dark on cryptocurrency ( look at all the losses they wail…) and other digital transactions like NFTs, staking (crypto savings accounts) and wallets.

But Ben says 10% of New Zealanders have already had their first foray into the crypto world. And with the global average at 15% per capita, there is plenty of room for growth here.

Binance’ global platform has grown from launch in 2017 to, as of mid-October, handling US$100 billion trading a day and 1.8 billion transactions per second.

In New Zealand, Binance’s BNB coin is already on the list of crypto in TV money reports here.

How can B:HIVERS convert to “Binancians”? Ben says it is important to educate yourself – to do your homework. An online Binance Academy covers 101 in crypto lessons through to the complex. And he might be talked into doing a session if enough people want to bring their lunch and have a listen.

But will he get Binance’s billionaire co-founder CZ (Changpeng Zhao) to visit from Singapore? He’s working on it… Now that would create a real buzz.

NZIE’s digital marketing students are celebrating a fantastic new collaboration between their education provider and Google. 

NZIE’s Digital Marketing School have developed a course with Google for its graduates that will put a cherry on top of their Diploma of Digital Marketing: a post-grad 10-week course in Google’s Digital Academy. 

The Google Digital Academy will be held at the end of each NZIE Digital Marketing Diploma and provide NZIE graduates with the chance to gain Google industry certifications. 

The certificates offered will focus on display and video, campaign management, and Google Search Ads 360. It will be run by Google and delivered with agency partners. 

“It builds on the Diploma in Digital Marketing,” says NZIE managing director Rob Marks. “Getting these certificates means that they are even more qualified when they enter the industry. A lot of agencies look for Google-certified digital marketers, so this initiative will help the industry and our graduates.

“The students are very excited. It’s a great way of getting certified and engaging with the Google team and agencies.”

NZIE’s Digital Marketing school offers programmes ranging from NZQA-accredited short courses to a Level 7 Diploma. All courses are co-created with industry and their classes are delivered 100% live and online so students can study from anywhere in New Zealand.

The institute’s “big network” of alumni can benefit from the recent partnership with Google too.

“Once they’ve got the Diploma, both graduating students and alumni can join the Google course,” Rob says. 

Dietary health has come out on top with B:HIVE-based Feel Fresh Nutrition scoring an exciting contract with Southern Cross Health Insurance.

Members of Southern Cross are eligible to receive major discounts on consultant and nutritionist fees with Feel Fresh Nutrition until December 10.

Feel Fresh Nutrition owner Abbie O’Rourke says this applies to the 900,000 Southern Cross members nationwide.

“This is the first time ever that we have had access to so many people, it’s exciting.  We know the role nutrition plays in our health and now, more than ever, people are seeking additional help. Having an unhealthy diet is the leading preventable risk for poor health in New Zealand, not mention how it makes us feel and perform,” she says.

Abbie says Southern Cross’ commitment shows that nutritional health is being further recognised as important for overall good health.

“People used to see us as just weight loss consultants, but it’s now understood that it impacts every part of our lives. We provide nutritional solutions for anxiety, high performance, sports performance, gut health, hormonal balance and everything else,” she says.

“For a lot of people [nutrition] used to be secondary to financial planning or physical health and now we’re seeing it become a really important part of being a healthy person.”

This current offering is a saving of $95 when booking in for the ‘Southern Cross Members Package’. This package includes a 60 minute initial consultation and two 30 minute follow-up consults. The standard fee for this package is $385, but only costs $290. Also, Southern Cross Health Insurance members who have Ultra Care are 100% covered, and members that have Wellbeing Two plus Body Care Module have an allocation of $250/year for nutritionists under the Feel Fresh deal.

The focus at Feel Fresh Nutrition, is not only on individual wellbeing but workplace wellbeing, Abbie says.

“A lot of the work that we do is in the workplace and many of our corporate clients are also Southern Cross members. It’s incredible how many people have access to this, but they are not aware of it. Nutritional is now top of mind when workplace wellbeing is considered.

“This partnership with Southern Cross has made nutritional help incredibly accessible to so many people.”

Walking into Compendium’s Level Three office is like walking into a cave of licorice all sorts. A riot of colour assaults the eye.

But the colour has meaning – they’re carefully chosen and woven together by fingers of sustainability.

Caitlin, one of the cave’s keepers, starts by putting her hand on a Hydro Flask, rubbing it like a Genie’s lamp: “Like all the products we represent, it is focused on sustainability. High quality, reusable, and long lasting with a lifetime guarantee.”

If you ride the “throw away, plastic wave” then Compendium will make you think again. The single use plastic bottles you now (hopefully) throw in the “recycle” bin are repurposed into Rumpl blankets – each blanket repurposes 60 bottles out of landfill.

And Compendium’s riotous Cotopaxi clothing brand recycles polyester – as well as repurposes off-cut material from bigger production runs giving perfectly functional material new life – ensuring that all materials used are responsibly sourced.

“These bags,” says Caitlin holding up a good-looking hiking pack, “are ethically made by workers who are given creative autonym to pick whatever coloured material they’d like from remnant material. They are unique and one-of-a-kind.”

Compendium is a family-owned business and it proudly distributes these brands across New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific Islands.

“The brands all have sustainability at their core.”

Building a sustainability plan has been a work in progress at The LEGO Group for years.

Cedric Roose, Country Manager for LEGO New Zealand, says the maker of the iconic children’s plastic construction toys says it hopes to have all its plastic bricks made from sustainable material by 2030.

“We have a little way to go, but there has been some promising progress,” Cedric says from his Level Four B:HIVE office.

A 2018 pilot project first produced some LEGO elements out of sugar cane. But they were non-structural elements like trees and leaves that appear in some LEGO sets.

“They looked good and felt good, but they didn’t have the strength for our construction pieces.” Then just over a year ago, The LEGO Group unveiled a prototype brick using PET plastic from discarded bottles –  the first brick made from a recycled material to meet the company’s strict quality and safety requirements.

Materials scientists and engineers spent three years testing more than 250 variations of PET materials and hundreds of other plastic formulations. The result is a prototype that meets several of their quality, safety and play requirements – including clutch power.

“Clutch power refers to the strength of the bricks when joined together and how easy they are to click together and pull apart,” Cedric says.

On average, a one-litre plastic PET bottle provides enough raw material for ten 2 x 4 LEGO bricks.  However, the bricks are still at an opaque colour stage and Cedric says the team is now figuring out how to make them the iconic LEGO colours.

Meanwhile The LEGO Group has also focused on getting rid of single plastic bags – from carrier bags to those found in LEGO boxes – and replacing them with paper. It has also set a target to reduce the company’s carbon emissions by 37% by 2032.

“We can have an impact for the future,” Cedric says. “The LEGO Group has a vision and a sustainability mission.”

The ocean has always been at the heart of Syrene skincare’s story.

Syrene uses marine ingredients in all its skincare formulations. The hero ingredient Ephemer™ is a macro algae, an antioxidant powerhouse that actively works to repair and protect skin at a cellular level.

Syrene is ingredient efficacy focused, which means it has thoroughly tested and researched the ingredients. It also harvests marine ingredients from sustainable farming methods such as marine collagen collected from the by-product (wastage of the fish food industry) of tuna fish skin.

Now in a twist of fate, Syrene has added another ocean ingredient to its range and it has become an important part of its sustainability story.

That ingredient is plastic – ocean waste plastic.

Mari Taylor, marketing executive for Syrene on the B:HIVE’s Level Three, says as custodians of the environment, the company has partnered with Ocean Waste Plastic™ for its packaging.

It’s currently estimated that every year, around eight million tons of plastic waste escapes into the oceans from coastal nations.

Mari says Syrene is constantly aware of its commitment to sustainable business practises. As well as using recycled plastic for packaging, it is working with retailer Mecca and TerraCycle.

“Rather than throwing away your already-loved bottles, pots and tubes, drop them off to your local Mecca store. TeraCycle’s program sends back your beauty waste, ready to be sorted, processed, and transformed into something new (and just as beautiful),” Mari says.

“We also put our online orders into 100% recyclable boxes and use a paper-based alternative to plastic bubble wrap to ensure your order gets to you safely.”