The Cawthron Institute is a partner in LAWA. Cawthron is New Zealand's largest independent science organisation, offering a broad spectrum of services to help protect the environment and support sustainable development of primary industries.

Within LAWA, Cawthron is tasked with a quality assurance role, to ensure the data and methodology of the science is robust. Where science meets best practice guidelines a green 'Cawthron tick' is applied; where there is room for improvement, an orange 'Cawthron tick ' is used.

Further reading: cawthron.co.nz