he Green Society was a small New Zealand political party dedicated to environmentalism. It was one of three environmentalist parties involved in the 1996 election, the others being the Green Party (then part of the Alliance) and the Progressive Green Party. The Green Society believed that environmentalism should be the sole and exclusive focus of any “green” party, and that both of the other groups were in error in their attempts to lay out social and economic policies as well.^{[citation needed]} The party was led by Simon Reeves, an environmental lawyer, who contested the Auckland Central electorate.^[1] The party contested eight electorates as well as the party list, but gained only 1,140 electorate and 2,363 list votes (0.11%), failing to win any seats.