About us
Annual report
In 2019–2020, we delivered a $77.4 million capital works program to maintain and improve our infrastructure and delivered on our year-2 price period commitment towards achieving a five-year target of $32 million in efficiency and cost savings through innovative and efficient business practices and asset management without reducing employee numbers.
We also responded proactively to the challenges of a hotter drier climate by taking action to ensure a secure water supply for our region.
Our annual report is compliant with financial and reporting directive (FRD) 30, which prescribes design and print specifications to ensure consistency, cost minimisation and low environmental impact.
Highlights
Coronavirus response
We positively responded to challenges posed by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic to ensure the delivery of safe, secure and affordable water and sewerage services to our region.
With the pandemic proving to be the single largest challenge for Barwon Water and the community in financial year, in addition to transitioning 71% of our workforce to remote working in late March, we proactively reached out to customers to offer support and help manage their bill payments.
We introduced a new outbound customer contact campaign and extended our customer centre’s hours each day. We also made sure we paid contractors within 10 days of receiving an invoice to keep money circulating in the local economy and help local businesses.
Water security
We responded to the challenges of a hotter drier climate by extending the reach of the Melbourne to Geelong pipeline (MGP) from Lovely Banks to Montpellier in November 2019, servicing Geelong’s northern suburbs and boosting water storages by up to 35 million litres a day.
We also began supply of Class A recycled water to Armstrong Creek and Torquay North in December and continued to supply recycled water from the Northern Water Plant.
We called on the Anglesea borefield to supplement supplies from November 2019 to June 2020.
Water for our Future
We launched a new and exciting program, ‘Water for our Future’, to co-design with our community our next Urban Water Strategy to meet the region’s long-term water security needs.
Reconciliation Action Plan
We were proud to mark the second year of our Reconciliation Action Plan in which we have committed to learning from and developing strong relationships with Traditional Owners.
Groups of staff visited key sites around the region with Traditional Owners groups from the region to learn more about Caring for Country principles.
The project seeks to embed Indigenous approaches to land and water management in our business, to protect the natural assets upon which we all depend.
We began conversations with Eastern Maar Aboriginal Corporation, the recently Registered Aboriginal Party in the western part of our region. We will work with Eastern Maar to identify projects that we can work on together.
Zero emissions
The 2019-2020 year saw us continue to build on the foundations required to achieve net zero emissions by 2030.
We launched the innovative Renewable Organics Networks for Colac and the G21 region to turn sewage and other organic waste into renewable energy; reducing emissions and landfill while generating jobs and driving economic growth.
We maintained our partnership with 12 other Victorian water corporations on a large-scale renewable solar farm to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, helping to keep water bills down with expected cost savings of up to $1.7 million over the life of the project.
Customer experience
We continued to transform the way we deliver customer experience. In June 2020, our customer service team was ranked number-one in Victoria and number-two nationally for call handling skills in a national customer service benchmark.
We continued to work collaboratively with local agencies and councils to deliver our customer support strategy to help customers experiencing financial hardship. This is part of a commitment in to allocate an additional $2.5 million over five years to helping customers in need.
Barwon Downs borefield
Following last year’s decision to withdraw the Barwon Downs licence renewal application, we have continued to work proactively to remediate the confirmed impacts of historic groundwater management at Boundary Creek and Big Swamp. In December we submitted to our remediation plan, which was accepted by Southern Rural Water as regulator in February, and that we continued to progress.
Diversity and inclusion
We continued to deepen our values of diversity and inclusion.
We achieved extremely positive results in the 2020 Victorian public sector’s People Matter survey, demonstrating our positive culture towards employees who identify LGBTIQ+, Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander and employees with a disability.
Awards
Finally, we were recognised through a number of awards in 2019-2020.
We won the best tasting tap water in Victoria at the Water Industry Operators Association’s 82nd annual conference and the 2019 Innovation Award for our property realisation program at the Australian Water Association Victorian Water Awards.
We were also a finalist in the Victorian Premier’s sustainability awards for our Zero Emission’s program, which targets 100% of our electricity coming from renewable sources by 2025, and slashing our greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2030.
Consultancy expenditure
In the 2019–2020 financial year, Barwon Water engaged 69 consultancies where the total fees payable to the consultants were greater than $10,000, with a total expenditure of $4,330,665.