Assessing risk with Annette

Annette Davison conducting a STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and maths) training session for high school students

When it comes to a leader in risk management and assessment, more water utilities are turning to Annette Davison. As founder and co-owner of The Risk Edge Group, she understands the challenges faced.

“The water industry found me, as opposed to me finding the water industry. I’d spent enough time working in contaminated sites and found it a bit mucky. I wanted to go somewhere cleaner and thought the water industry might be it, but my first job was in sewage.”

While Annette Davison may not have planned to land in the water industry, she has been making waves since arriving. With her first job at Sydney Water as a senior consultant, Davison has continued to excel when it comes to having an impact on the industry.

Award-winning work

Davison and The Risk Edge Group have won so many awards that she cannot place them all on her CV. Her recognition as the Water Professional of the Year by the Australian Water Association in 2021 was of particular note.

“It’s one of those things where you don’t need to be recognised to have self-worth, but it is nice to be recognised at the same time,” she said. “Winning Water Professional of the Year was just incredible. Given the stellar line-up of finalists, I thought my chances were like the proverbial snowball in hell. When they read out my name, I was in absolute shock.”

Davison, individually and in teams, has won awards from the Better Business Partnership, Engineers Australia, and the NSW Premier’s Department Awards. That’s not to forget the many awards she has won from both the New South Wales branch and the National branch of the Australian Water Association.

“It’s important to acknowledge that you don’t win awards alone. You’re standing tall on the shoulders of others,” she said. “These awards are really a recognition of everyone who has helped me get to that point in my career. It recognises the strong relationships you make in the water industry because it’s more of a family. They are not just colleagues but integral parts of your life. It was also a win for my wonderful friends, my family, and of course, my gorgeous husband. Without your wider cheer squad, you don’t get to where you are, and the wins aren’t as satisfying anyway, as there’s no one to share them with.”

Risk Edge Group supporting utilities

The Risk Edge Group is a risk assessment and management company. It specialises in governance, enterprise, water cycle and resource management risk. Its staff help businesses better understand their risks, increase certainty, and meet their objectives. Such a company does not come about on its own, and Davison saw an opportunity.

“I was working in government at a time where risk was starting to rear its head as something organisations needed to be aware of,” she said. “Our company came into being about 10 years ago. Risk Edge, as it was called at the time, was filling that gap in the market. The goal was to help utilities understand where their uncertainties lay and do something about them.”

Davison highlights the importance of knowing that risk and uncertainty are not necessarily negative. Under ISO 31000, risk is defined as the effect of uncertainty on objectives.

“Achieving your objectives can be positive or negative. If you think about it, we are all risk managers,” she said. “Every time you cross the road, get in the car, eat out, go to the hospital or make a decision, we’ve done some risk assessment and management in our heads. Water utilities are responsible for tens of thousands, if not millions, of customers. They need to understand what can go wrong with their water products and ensure that they are managed to protect those customers.”

Most importantly, understanding risk allows organisations to optimise their businesses and become more efficient. Risk management has been mandated for essential services across Australia. While there are different systems for different states, every provider needs some urban water risk management system in place. Otherwise, there can be serious penalties and outcomes.

Water quality and security

When it comes to managing drinking water, water scarcity is something that would rarely enter the minds of urban consumers. As far as Davison is concerned, water security is about both quantity and quality.

“You can have all the water you like, but if it’s not the right quality for your desired end use, you can’t do anything with it. Ultimately, you would have to spend a lot of money to bring it to the right level. That can get prohibitively expensive,” she said.

It’s why Davison and The Risk Edge Group offer risk workshops to utilities, local government, and other organisations. It helps them understand their water quality risks and implement improved procedures.

“It could be bringing a new water source online, considering the purification of recycled water, or any number of other options,” she said. “It’s important to remember that there is a lot of work in the options analysis space as well. That is to help organisations corral and identify potential options before assessing them against specific criteria and set objectives. Understanding the risks is vital to making informed decisions because we are looking at projects that often involve tens of millions of dollars.”

These decisions are often challenging for council-run, regional water utilities. Municipal governments usually have a range of competing objectives that can seem vast. This is where Davison and The Risk Edge Group can step in.

“We help them review the risks associated with each objective to develop a balanced outcome,” she said. “We’ve been working with utilities across New South Wales recently to help them navigate new regulatory requirements. With the large array of legislative requirements, there is a series of things that utilities have to do. We’ve been working with a range of utilities to help ensure that their water quality requirements are properly considered.”

Future of risk management

Davison believes that utilities in Australia are mature in their understanding and attitudes to risk management. This has arisen because utilities have dealt with risks for many decades, with Australia leading the way in this space.

“In 2004, the Australian drinking water guidelines were amended to introduce the concept of quality assurance rather than quality control,” she said. “It led to the development of a Framework for the Management of Drinking Water Quality based on ISO 9000 and HACCP. Instead of relying just on monitoring the water coming out of the tap at the customer’s end, utilities now look back up the system to check different points in the process. The idea is to stop non-conforming products from ever reaching customers.”

A significant change from implementing the Framework was the introduction of critical control points — a development that came out of the food safety industry. Davison believes the industry has come a long way, but there is more to learn.

“One way the water industry can learn is to look at other industries. Sectors like food safety and aviation deal with risk in a range of different ways, and there are opportunities in those spaces that we can bring into our industry,” said Davison.

Further down the line, Davison is passionate about working with and learning from First Nations people. She is convinced that their knowledge is integral to water management and understanding, especially including the cultural aspects and importance of water. School students are another group that Davison enjoys interacting with and whom she believes have incredible power to make changes.

“The current generation of school students is far more savvy than I was at their age,” she said. “They have access to so much more information, and influencing them will be challenging. It’s why The Risk Edge Group does a lot of pro bono education work, as part of its value of generosity.”

The importance of giving back to the community is also reflected in its OneCreek initiative, with Rotary Community Networks as a key partner. OneCreek is a grassroots initiative championed by The Risk Edge Group together with OneStreet, a not-for-profit started by Davison during COVID. It has since grown as a rich resource for community-building. The idea behind OneCreek is to increase awareness of and care for our urban waterways, one creek at a time.

“The idea is that the local community works out what it wants for the creek,” she said. “My local creek is Rocky Creek, and it sure takes a beating. We want to give that poor creek some love and improve awareness of it as a valuable component of our environment and deserving of care and respect in its own right. Creeks can also form practical learning environments for students. For instance, if you can identify local schools close to the creek, students can learn all sorts of things like hydrology, pollution, environmental science, design elements and First Nations’ importance. A natural laboratory!”

Her thinking is that if the students are genuinely aware of the entire catchment system that the creek comes from, they will understand what happens with their dumped rubbish.

“Having awareness from that age upwards is key. When they communicate this to their parents, there is more chance of the messages sticking for decades – well, that’s the plan!”

For more information, visit https://www.riskedge.com.au/

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