Many would have struggled to begin a new job at the start of the Covid 19 Lockdowns in 2020, so imagine what it would have been like to start as the new Managing Director of a water utility at that time? That’s exactly what Lara Olsen, Managing Director of South East Water did.

Lara has worked in startups, in the energy space, in corporates and in government roles throughout her career and one of her career highlights was working at Tesla where she learned that even very large organisations can be agile.

Lara shares how she is applying what she has learned from outside the water industry in her role. And about how having a design philosophy, agility, a strong sense of purpose and commitment to customers can open the door to innovative thinking. 

So many questions came up in this discussion but overall Lara paints a picture of her vision for South East Water’s innovation future.

Today’s episode is hosted by GHD’s Water Market Leader for Victoria, Lindsey Brown.

More and more utilities are realising the benefits of sustainable procurement practices, not only for their organisations’ bottom lines but also for their communities. Today I talk with passionate changemaker and sustainability advocate Lindsey Brown about a recent webinar series she put together to engage utilities on this topic.

Lindsey is GHD’s Water Market Leader for Victoria, Australia. With a 15-plus year background in environmental sustainability, corporate social responsibility and public policy development in the water industry, Lindsey is passionate about sustainability and win-win outcomes for all stakeholders. 

In today’s episode, we dig into why sustainable procurement matters, what it looks like in practice and Lindsey shares an overview of her four-part webinar series featuring some of the innovators in this space.

Nothing exists within a vacuum. When we build huge infrastructure, it doesn’t stand alone, but amidst multiple upon multiple, in fact, infinite systems of life.

So far in the 21st Century, the discourse about what we build has been largely around sustainability. How do we make buildings, and our infrastructure sustainable so they not only last a long time but so they don’t harm the environment or people?

Today we explore a different perspective, the concept of regenerative design. It’s a conversation that goes beyond sustainability, that asks the question: “How might we look at what we create and build for the benefit of human beings more deeply so that all life can thrive in any given area?”

For this discussion, we are joined by guests Ben Preston and Lindsey Brown. Ben is an independent consultant and engineer who is deeply committed to inspiring and educating people about regenerative design. Lindsey is GHD’s Water Market Leader for Victoria, Australia who is leading an exploration of how regenerative design can help transform the work of the water sector. 

Together, Ben and Lindsey explore what regenerative design is and how it could be applied in the water industry.

In the US there are literally thousands of small municipal water utilities and one of the big challenges faced by small utilities is how to leverage innovation to better serve water consumers and communities.

Building new infrastructure and developing new ideas is often too costly and resource-intensive for small regional utilities. However, one US regional utility company has developed an innovative coop model to up the game of local utilities so they can bring the latest in technology and innovation to their communities. In today’s interview, I talk with EJ Water Cooperative CEO Bill Teichmiller to find out more about how it works and how this model has transformed regional utilities.

Welcome to our first Future Water episode for 2021. 

We’re kicking off the first episode of the year by looking at how utilities innovate for drought resilience. I could think of no one better to talk to about this than Jim Fear, Senior Planning Engineer at Seqwater.

With over 30 years industry experience, Jim’s seen every drought response strategy under the sun. In this interview, we talk about what Seqwater is doing to innovate in an era of climate change, as well as best practices and past experience in drought management.

Innovation inspiration can come from a wide variety of sources outside your industry, at least that was the case for the digital metering team at Yarra Valley Water (YVW). 

In today’s show, I talk with Raghu Bharadwaj, Program Director for the Digital metering program at YVW. Raghu shares with us how his team leveraged cross sector expertise and innovation to develop connected digital meters that are more efficient to make and run than they were in the past. 

And he gives some insight into why Yarra Valley Water has been making waves with their approach to innovation. I wondered if there was something in the water at Yarra Valley. Listen to Raghu as he shares the full story.

Welcome to a slightly different episode of Future Water this week. Our community AquaLAB Connect has been up and running now for about 6 months and we’ve welcomed senior water professionals from around the globe into our platform. This has led to a lot of interesting and candid conversations about the future of water innovation, the big challenges utilities everywhere are facing and the big ideas our community is speculating about.

How can water utilities help move the dial in developing new water technologies and solutions? We’ve all heard of accelerator programmes, but how can they be applied to water utilities? In this episode, we take a deep dive to answer these questions.

Believe it or not, the water crisis is here and impacts developed and developing nations alike. According to the United Nations, by 2025, nearly two billion people will be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity.

In this episode, we look at how two very different cities are tackling the water security problem and we explore what it’s going to take to secure this fundamental resource for future generations.

We’ll explore the trends, what countries are currently doing to address water security in the face of climate change and what’s getting in the way of taking action on water security? 

Believe it or not, the water crisis is here and impacts developed and developing nations alike. According to the United Nations, by 2025, nearly two billion people will be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity.

In this episode, we look at how two very different cities are tackling the water security problem and we explore what it’s going to take to secure this fundamental resource for future generations.

We’ll explore the trends, what countries are currently doing to address water security in the face of climate change and what’s getting in the way of taking action on water security?