How many years have you been at GAWB?
One year. I work four days a week – two days from home, two days in the Brisbane office, with occasional travel to Gladstone.
Describe your job in 25 words or less:
I am responsible for ensuring GAWB successfully delivers on its climate change aspirations across activities, including investment decisions, project development and asset operations to ensure strategic alignment.
What is the most interesting or surprising part of what you do?
The amount of energy it takes to provide a reliable water supply service to the Gladstone community.
Do people make assumptions about your role?
Yes, all the time. My mantra has always been to strive towards resource efficiency. To do more with less has always been an inspiration to me. There is always an opportunity to do more with less. I think this philosophy comes from being raised in the bush and being an engineer. I am a great believer in: ‘prevention rather than cure’, when it comes to energy, water and resource sustainability.
What projects are you working on at the moment?
The Awoonga Dam solar installation project commands most of my attention currently. I have wonderful stakeholders from pretty much all Business Units supporting me in its delivery.
I am also providing advice to the FGP team regarding our intention to baseline our new assets as they come online over the next 12 months, so we can track and tweak their operational energy performance for e.g. the FGP’s Alton Downs pump station, along with greenhouse emissions.
What are your priorities as a Sustainability Lead?
The complexity of the water energy nexus is fascinating and, dare I say, a challenge that unites many of us in the water industry. To approach any complex system with a framework as to how to best conserve and utilise its resources, I revert to a simple prioritisation hierarchy. This is a well-accepted approach, advocated as industry best-practice across numerous resource sectors, including waste, water, and energy.
This framework champions prevention and reduction strategies in priority to less efficient reactive actions such as reuse, recycling, substitution, and mitigation.
The intention to baseline our new assets as they come online over the next 12 months, so that we can track and tweak their operational energy performance e.g. the FGP’s Alton Downs pump station.
Why does GAWB have a Climate Change strategy?
The Climate Change Strategy (2020-30) sets out GAWB’s commitment to lessen the impact of its energy-intensive operations, and build the resilience of our core services. The supporting action plan sets out how GAWB will work towards this goal and implement actions that build capacity and reduce vulnerabilities.
