Water Market Considerations
Drought and Community Awareness
The Murray Darling Basin Commission has declared Australia's current drought the worst in 1,000 years. Despite promising rainfall in Sydney's catchment in recent months, the drought, which has persisted since the beginning of 2001, still has a grip on much of the Australian continent. Many areas missed out on the recent rain that Sydney benefited from, including both southern Victoria (including Melbourne) and south-eastern Queensland (including Brisbane). Water shortages, as a consequence, continue to rate among the top five news stories in Australian media on a weekly basis.
Water Restrictions
As at 26 June 2007, the combined storage level of dams supplying water to Brisbane and south-east Queensland was 18%, 10% lower than the record lows noted in last year's Sustainability Report and falling by more than 1% per month. In an effort to reduce water consumption, water restrictions in Queensland were lifted in April 2007 to level 5, up from level 4 which was put in place in November 2006. Coupled with this, the Queensland Water Commission placed requirements on non-residential customers to assess and reduce water consumption through the development of Water Efficiency Management Plans (WEMPs) or risk having access to mains water refused.
Low Cost of Water
Water in Australian capital cities generally costs in the order of one dollar per kilolitre and up to one dollar more for discharging waste water to sewer. This is well below the rates charged in most other developed nations. This makes saving water a relatively low financial priority for businesses and households and has consequences for our ability to implement water saving initiatives. Investment opportunities are currently of a smaller scale than those that exist for energy-saving initiatives.
However, Investa is acutely aware of our responsibility to reduce water consumption in our buildings and operations and this is part of our overall aim of becoming 'faster, lighter and enduring'.
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Case Studies
Scope of Reporting:
The scope of Investa's water reporting is explained in the reporting protocol summarised in the appendices. Unlike energy, we report on all the water coming into a building through its main meter, regardless of whether or not we have direct control over its consumption. This is because the component tenants control (use of washroom facilities and kitchen supplies) would be difficult to submeter uniformly across the portfolio and tends to be drawn from common-area fittings which we supply and maintain. As with energy, we report on buildings we manage including buildings owned by external funds managed by Investa. We apply a methodology that is consistent with that described in the National Australian Built Environment Rating System (NABERS) validation protocol.
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