#BetterTogether – Agricultural Landholders and Transmission: On the Ground Insights

How could electricity transmission infrastructure and agriculture co-exist and create shared value? That’s the question we’re seeking to answer through our social licence research exploring co-existence and shared value opportunities for landholders affected by transmission infrastructure.

As Australia moves towards a renewable energy future, a growing number of agricultural landholders are being approached to host electricity transmission infrastructure of their land.

Our energy businesses recognise that these transmission development projects, as well as the maintenance of existing infrastructure, may impact the lives and livelihoods of agricultural landholders.

They also understand that they have a responsibility to recognise and minimise these impacts and work towards agreeable outcomes for everyone.

What will this research be used for?

Our social licence research will be used to guide the development of practical guidelines for co-existence between electricity transmission infrastructure, agricultural landholders and their communities. Our goal is to develop guidelines that will:

  • Provide a plain English understanding of the practical impacts that energy transmission infrastructure may have on agricultural operations
  • Identify practical modifications and mitigations that could be considered, by both agricultural operators and transmission infrastructure businesses, to minimise potential impacts
  • Identify shared value opportunities, to dually support sustainable agricultural production and transmission planning and operation.

Who’s involved?

This initiative is the result industry collaboration between Transgrid, Powerlink, TasNetworks, ElectraNet and AusNet.

A key part of this collaboration has also been the formation of a Community Outcomes Group (COG). The purpose of the COG is to provide strategic insights into the agricultural sector to co-design the research and resulting guideline.

Our Landholder Community Outcomes Group includes representatives from: Ag Energy Taskforce, Australian Energy Infrastructure Commissioner, Bundaberg Canegrowers, National Farmers’ Federation, National Irrigators Council, RE-Alliance, Tasmanian Farmers and Graziers Association, Queensland Farmers’ Federation and Victorian Farmers Federation.

Our research partner is KPMG Australia.

What’s involved in the research?

The research component of this initiative involved a landholder survey, which was completed by 144 landowners across QLD, NSW, TAS, VIC and SA. Eighteen deep-dive interviews were also conducted with landholders committed to sharing their experiences on how transmission infrastructure has, or is expected to, impact them.

What have we learnt so far?

Agricultural landholders are, of course, not a homogenous group – there are many variables which affect how transmission impacts them and the way they use their land. This includes the type of farming activities that are being undertaken, the value an individual, or farming business, places on any particular feature of a property and the quality of the engagement that has taken place, just to name a few.

It is not surprising then, that when it comes to assessing impacts, our research validated 34 individual impacts across the areas of agricultural operations, wellbeing, financial and environmental.

Here’s some of the themes industry collaborators are working through with ag sector representatives:

  1. Visual impacts, financial loss and biosecurity risk were reported as the most significantly felt impacts for landholders.
  2. At community level, landholders reported that the most likely negative impacts relate to decreased property value, visual amenity, and neighbour relations.
  3. The impacts felt by landholders change over the planning, construction and operation phase of the infrastructure lifecycle, with many impacts appearing to lessen over time.
  4. Landholders identified a range of economic and social benefits for their wider communities, however, identified few benefits as infrastructure hosts.
  5. Landholders identified a range of mitigation measures that could help with co-existence, ranking ‘input into the planning process’ as the most important action transmission businesses can take. More local, community involvement was also rated as a key action to improve co-existence outcomes.
  6. While few benefits were reported, a range of shared value options were suggested. Broadly these related to improving energy affordability and reliability, further investment in rural infrastructure, and utilisation of transmission project resources (both during and after construction).

The better practice guidelines, which will utilise the finding of the research to offer a smorgasbord of options and opportunities to improve coexistence outcomes and realise shared value is expected to be released in Q1 2023.

More about this project

The Energy Charter is a unique coalition of like-minded energy organisations with a shared purpose and passion for customers. Our purpose is to empower one another across the energy supply chain to deliver better energy outcomes for customers and communities.

One of the ways this is achieved is through collaborative projects, called #BetterTogether initiatives, that focus on delivering tangible customer and community outcomes. This Landholder and Community Social Licence Research has been endorsed by the Energy Charter’s CEO Council as a Priority #BetterTogether initiative, recognising the importance of ensuring that no one is left behind in Australia’s transition to renewables.

#BetterTogether – Bringing the Customer Voice to Board

Customer Voice to Board
Top-level leadership putting customers at the centre of decision making is what Principle 1 of the Energy Charter is all about. But what does this look like in practice? What do customer-focused Boards need to make good decisions and how can you amplify the customer voice at Board?

We explored this topic at a recent #BetterTogerher Know Your Customers & Communities session with the Water Services Association of Australia (WSAA), interviewing Independent Chair of the Energy Charter End Users Consultative Group and experienced Board member Cath Smith.

Cath opened the session making the point that in an increasingly complex business and social environment, businesses that focus on the needs of customers are likely to outperform others.

“Boards are the cultural leaders of an organisation, and the chief stewards of risk and opportunity. It’s essential they have the know how to improve customer outcomes, not only for the customer, but as an intrinsic part of managing risk, delivering better commercial outcomes, and avoiding unnecessary political intervention and regulatory delays” Cath said.

When framing up the risk and opportunity with your Board, there are a range of ownership structures that might impact how you position the value of elevating the customer voice.

Cath explained, “For many businesses there is a regulatory requirement to engage with customers and it’s important that Boards are kept up to speed with expanding expectations in this area. 

“For privately-owned businesses, there is a direct commercial argument to be made – risks are better managed and commercial outcomes are more successful, when customers’ voices are brought up to the board.

“When governance structures and processes support the elevation of the customer voice, Boards have access to more diverse thinking, broader insights and can also better understand the lived experience and perceptions of their customers.”

Kate McCue, Manager Corporate Affairs at Endeavour Energy also joined the session to share her experience using the Energy Charter’s Customer Voice @ Board resource.

“We used the Customer Voice @ Board resource as tool to conduct a gap analysis with our Board. Recognising the extremely challenging experiences of our customers through COVID-19 and natural disasters, we agreed with our Board that we needed to focus-in on customer engagement and become an industry leader in this area” Kate said.

“We brought our Board, Executive, Customer Consultative Committee and subject matter experts together for a full day workshop to set ambitious targets together. These conversations were critical in building a shared understanding between our Board and stakeholders.

“We also had our Board open and close our online customer panel and observe customer conversations. This has been transformational for our Board in building a deep understanding of the issues that are front and centre for our customers.

“We now have a calendar in place to get our Board out to meet key customers regularly, and also include them in staff events so they can hear from staff that interact with our customers on a daily basis” she explianed.

Having participated in a range of customer engagement activities as a Board member, Cath agrees enabling customer interaction can be extremely valuable for Boards but does require careful planning.

“Be aware that people are likely to be very polite when meeting Board members. It’s important to create experiences where Board members will hear genuine views. This could, for example, include having board members sit in on customers calls.

“It’s also important to provide context and set expectations about what the purpose of the interaction is, in many cases it is to observe and listen, but not direct the action.

“It can be helpful to separate customer engagement from the Board decision-making process, holding events out-of-session, to give Board members the opportunity to gather insight and context without having to immediately apply that information to a decision.”

“Building in time for Board members to digest, analyse and consider the implications of their experience at a strategic level is critical” Cath said.

The Energy Charter Customer Voice @ Board resource features many more practical insights that support the energy sector to embrace the customer voice at a board level, across the areas of:

  1. Board composition and training
  2. Board meetings
  3. Decision-making
  4. Customer engagement
  5. Risk and assurance
  6. Customer advocacy structures

You can find this and other resources to help you embed the customer voice at Board here: