Yarra Valley Water

Yarra Valley Water are the largest of Melbourne’s three water corporations providing water supply and sewerage services to over 1.7 million people and over 50,000 businesses in the northern and eastern suburbs of Melbourne.

The company commissioned Trucost to calculate the external environmental costs of extracting water in Australia to spark discussion around integrating the true cost of water into the decison-making of companies and regulators.

“We wanted to explore the idea of attributing a more accurate value to water through both dry and plentiful times. This value would include externalities and help us to make the right decisions when evaluating servicing options and help to support sustainable management of our most precious natural resource. The resulting value of water would take into consideration not only the traditionally costed items such as pipes, pumps and tanks but place a value on a range of external costs. In the resulting White Paper, Trucost has assessed the impacts on the environment and used internationally-recognised methodologies to determine a broader value of water. We are launching this report to open up the discussion on the true value of water.”

Insights

Valuing Water to drive more effective decisions (publication)