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With the potential for fuel restrictions if New Zealand moves into Fuel Alert Level Phases 3 or Phase 4, it’s important to start thinking ahead about how your business would continue to operate if access to fuel became more limited. See the Governments fact sheet on the Fuel Alert Levels and Priority Bands here.

The goal isn’t to plan for the worst, it’s to be prepared. By considering your business continuity plan now, you’ll be in a stronger position to make confident decisions quickly if conditions change.  

A business continuity plan should be designed to keep essential business functions operating during unexpected disruptions. It identifies critical operations, assesses risks, and outlines recovery procedures and mitigation strategies to protect the business, its reputation and stakeholders. 

How to Approach Business Continuity Planning 

Consider the following areas of your business: 

1. Fuel Dependency & Critical Operations – Determine which parts of your business cannot operate without fuel 

2. Supply chain – Determine which of your suppliers would also be fuel constrained 

3. Workforce & Travel Impacts – Determine the impact fuel restrictions would have on your team and their ability to get to work 

4. Fleet / Vehicles, Plant & Equipment – Determine which vehicles or machines are business critical 

5. Customer Commitments & Contracts – Determine which commitments are time critical versus flexible, to enable you to prioritise work 

6. Cash Flow & Financial Resilience – Understand the financial impact of operating at a reduced capacity 

7. Customers – Understand how dependent customers are on driving to you to access your business or how access to fuel impacts your ability to make deliveries to customers. 

First, for each of the core areas of your business consider what impact fuel restrictions will have. Secondly, for each area, brainstorm what potential mitigants or solutions are available to you.  

Below we’ve shared practical examples of how different types of businesses can think about continuity planning in a fuel restricted environment, so you can focus on staying viable under constraint. 

Example Business Continuity Plan Prompts 

• Trades and Manufacturing Business Example 

• Agricultural Business Examples

• Services Business Examples

• Tourism, Hospitality, and Retail Businesses Example 

Decision Making Triggers & Escalation 

Based on your business continuity plan, what decision would we make in the first 48 hours of Phase 3 or Phase 4? 

Confirm and communicate who has the authority to:  

• Pause work? 

• Decline jobs? 

• Reallocate fuel? 

What indicators tell us it’s time to switch into reduced operations mode? 

Unlimit Support 

If you require our support to facilitate your business continuity plan, please get in touch with: 

• Loren Anderson

• Stephy Wylde