Corporate sustainability strategy climate change Australia

• South East Water
• South Australian Water

South East Water

South East Water has just completed a successful project with Sustainable Business Practices (SBP) to advance Sustainability thinking in our organisation. This project has involved engaging the entire senior management group to understand the implications of a Sustainable approach and how Sustainability links to core business objectives and activities at the strategic level.

The key outcome of this process has been the strong endorsement of the actions to overcome identified challenges and take advantage of available opportunities, thus enabling SE Water to progress towards a more holistic approach to Sustainability.

SBP made a considerable contribution to the success of this project through the following;

• A structured and focused approach was utilised to engage organisational leaders to understand the implications of Sustainability and measure the current level of understanding in this key group.
• Significant domestic and international experience in integration of sustainability considerations within business practices and advising government on policy. This expertise was able to be leveraged to illustrate the effectiveness of a Sustainable approach in a number of different contexts and added richness to the external scan process undertaken to gain a perspective on SE Water's relative position in regard to Sustainability
• Highly useful models that were effectively utilised to visually illustrate the practical step changes to move forward in Sustainability
• Mentoring of SE Water's Sustainability group, to significantly increase the level of understanding of the team members with varying levels of skill and experience. This team now has a strong joint perspective on the value of Sustainability and members have become key advocates for Sustainability in the organisation and will provide the platform to move forward.

Alison Bradley
Sustainability Manager

South Australian Water

Sustainable Business Practices demonstrated their collaborative skills through the co-operative development of this benchmark tool. Through the process of developing this tool, we were able to clarify the characteristics of a sustainability leader.

The tool provided a sound conceptual framework which, coupled with international best practice examples, helped us better understand whether our existing activities were "business as usual" or "setting the pace".

Identifying activities as "business as usual" versus "setting the pace" meant that we could identify those actions required to establish ourselves as leaders in sustainability.

SA Water came first place in the Global Water Utility index in the DJSI this year. (moving from 7th to 1st in one year).

SA Water Homepage: www.sawater.com.au

Trisha Drioli
Sustainability Manager