9 - 2022 - ISCouncil

ISC announces Water Advisory Group

Water is life. A sustainable water future is closely tied to climate change and healthy communities. The water sector is improving infrastructure performance, establishing benchmarks and leading practices to transition to a circular economy to support the communities of the future, all the while making more prominent cultural values of water.  

To advance this agenda, the ISC has established the IS Water Advisory Group – an impressive team of water experts across Australia and New Zealand, Our collective aim is to ensure that all water infrastructure in Australia and New Zealand delivers cultural, social, environmental, and economic benefits.  

We will do this through:  

  • Fostering a collaborative community of practice to help drive best practice and support industry transition 
  • Providing market insight and intelligence to support capacity and capability building for Infrastructure Sustainability in the water sector 
  • Making recommendations on stakeholder views relevant to ISC and the IS Ratings Scheme for the water sector 

“We have a great representation of water authorities, peak bodies and local government across Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand who all bring critical expertise, networks and ambition to help advance water infrastructure sustainability.” says Ainsley Simpson, CEO of ISC.  

The group is chaired by Rod Naylor, Global Water Lead at GHD. “I have always been a big fan of the ISC approach to assessing sustainability performance throughout the asset life cycle and I look forward to exploring the potential for IS Ratings for the Water sector across Australia and New Zealand.” says Rod. “We have identified the ISWAG priority topics and are in the process of formalising the work plan for the groups.” 

The IS Water Advisory Group members are representatives from SA Water, Sydney Water (NSW), Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (VIC), Water Corporation (WA), Coliban Water (VIC), Sunwater (QLD), Parkes Shire Council (NSW), Wellington Water (NZ), Water Services Association of Australia, Aecom, Aurecon, GHD, KPMG, Mott MacDonald. 

IS ratings for Infrastructure Sustainability and ESG Assurance

The IS Rating Scheme (IS) is a voluntary third party assured standard that evaluates the governance, economic, environmental and social performance of infrastructure assets. The IS rating system enables evaluating sustainability across the planning, design, construction and operational phases of infrastructure programs, projects, networks and assets.

In this webinar we will cover how IS rating tools

• enable financial institutions to integrate sustainability / ESG into the investment decision-making process for new or existing infrastructure projects and portfolios,
• provide measurement benchmarks and minimum standards for new and existing assets to become more climate change resilient and socially responsible,
• are used by financial institutions to structure ESG products such as sustainability linked loans (with case studies)