Principles-Based Governance of a Large Water Utility

Robert Humphries (), Nicole Pettit (), Natalie Reilly (), William Varey () and Robert Kinnell
Additional contact information
Robert Humphries: Australian National University
Nicole Pettit: Nicole graduated from Curtin University in Western Australia
Natalie Reilly: Australian National University
William Varey: Australian National University
Robert Kinnell: Australian National University

A chapter in Management Models for the Future, 2009, pp 1-12 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract The Water Corporation of Western Australia is a State Governmentowned corporatised water utility which operates over the huge 2.5 millionsquare kilometre land area of Western Australia. The Corporation services a population of about 2 million people, has 2200 employees, an asset base of about AUD 18 billion, and an annual turnover of over AUD 1 billion. The Water Corporation has embarked on a journey of business transformation, with environmental, social and financial sustainability as the prime conceptual and ethical drivers. This new focus on long-term sustainability has been catalysed by a dramatic decline in the yields of the surface and groundwater resources in the south west part of Western Australia – over 65% over the past 30 years, with demand growing at a rate of more than 3% per year. The Executive of the Water Corporation has adopted 18 Business Principles as a thinking and governance framework, and these are being applied progressively. Practical business benefits achieved so far include the Corporation’s ‘Security through Diversity’ approach to sustaining water supplies in a drying climate; its commitment to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030; public targets for reductions in per capita domestic water use and wastewater reclamation; and the development of a multi-faceted biodiversity protection and enhancement program.

Keywords: Water utility; Western Australia; drying climate; business principles; sustainability; business transformation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-540-71451-4_8

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783540714514

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-540-71451-4_8

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Springer Books from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().