Energy businesses worked closely with their customer councils to ensure that their disclosures were reflective of the outcomes that they had delivered to customers during 2020-21. In addition, feedback was obtained in relation to self-maturity assessments under the Energy Charter’s Maturity Model.

The signatory 2020-21 disclosures share with energy consumers and stakeholders:

1. An overview of their customers and the communities in which they operate
2. Customer outcomes they have delivered under the five principles of the Energy Charter:
   1. Customer at the centre
   2. Affordability
   3. Safety, sustainability and reliability
   4. Customer experience
   5. Supporting customers in vulnerable circumstances
3. Self-assessed maturity levels and metrics and measures to substantiate
4. Commitments to customers for the next 12 months and beyond

In addition, the Energy Charter 2020-21 disclosure asks “what have we done that has made an actual difference for the customer this year?”. With ongoing momentum, this includes:

• Customers in vulnerable circumstances impacted by COVID-19 were supported individually and collectively by Energy Charter signatories, informed and guided by an evidence based drawn from the 12-month COVID-19 Customer Vulnerability Research by Deloitte
• Commercial and industrial customers, including small businesses, benefitted from increased transparency, accountability and fit-for-purpose products and services through the National Customer Code for Energy Brokers, Consultants and Retailers with more than 40 signatories
• Directors and Boards have better practice options to ensure the customer voice is appropriately influencing their strategic decision-making and the direction of energy businesses through the Customer Voice @ Board Level Resource (responding to IAP Report 2019)
• Collaboration with the water sector in a first-ever WE (water + energy) Collaborate Memorandum of Understanding to drive tangible customer outcomes and insights sharing between the sectors. The Energy Charter has hosted over 300+ participants learning from 12 speakers on topics ranging from consumer engagement, innovative approaches to customer co-design and indigenous engagement.

Over the coming month, Energy Charter signatories look forward to the opportunity to attend Stakeholder Forums and CEO meetings hosted by the IAP, and reflect on the 2021 IAP Report (December) in order to get valuable feedback on whether they are meeting customer expectations, and where there is room for continuous improvement.

Signatory disclosures will be available for download via the IAP website from Friday 1 October. 

Landholder and community engagement is an important aspect of providing essential energy services to Australian communities. As we move increasingly towards a new energy future, there are growing opportunities for proactive engagement between energy businesses, landholders and communities regarding energy asset development projects and the maintenance of existing energy assets. For transmission businesses, there is already an increase of asset development in line with the growth in renewable energy.

The Landholder & Community Engagement Better Practice Guide was co-designed by the National Farmers Federation, Queensland Farmers Federation, NSW Farmers Federation, Victorian Farmers Federation, AgForce Queensland, Cotton Australia and Energy Charter signatories APA Group, Powerlink Queensland, TransGrid with support from Essential Energy and Jemena.

It was launched at an event with the National Energy Infrastructure Commissioner, Andrew Dyer and NSW Farmers Federation Policy Director, Kathy Rankin.

At face value, more engagement with and about customers seems like an intrinsically good thing. However, if we are not empathetic, ethical, and intentional about the language we use when we engage, we risk doing great harm. This is most critically the case for those customers we classify as ‘facing vulnerable circumstances’—the demographic of focus for Principle 5.   

When we put people into categories or segments for business purposes and attach labels like ‘vulnerable’ or ‘disadvantaged’, we risk othering and stigmatising the people we are trying to support. Christine Tan, author of this Talk Poverty article titled I didn’t know I was poor until I applied to college, discusses the impact that organisational categorisation and labelling had on her:

During early 2021, signatories reviewed the Uniting Report “Resourcing Consumer Engagement” and shared insights from individual businesses on the support that they individually provided to consumer advocates. They also looked more broadly for examples of better practice both in the energy sector and beyond. In mid-2021, the #BetterTogether initiative ran a human centred design workshop with advocates to discuss what works, what doesn’t work and what were the opportunities to do better to support consumer advocates.

This Better Practice Guide summarises the outcomes of this work. It does not purport to be a prescriptive list of obligations, but rather a “better practice guide” with a focus on encouraging better practice across Energy Charter signatories and beyond. The Guide sets out five better practice principles for supporting consumer advocacy:

1. Get the basics right
2. Co-ordination and prioritisation
3. Consultation and Collaboration
4. Capability building

It’s called a “Better Practice Guide” in recognition that we can always do better, and we are committed to continual improvement.

Supporting robust consumer advocacy is an important commitment under the Energy Charter (Principle 1.4) and was reinforced by a recommendation from the Independent Accountability Panel in its 2020 Report Recommendation 13: ‘Work with policy makers and market bodies to implement a way for consumer advocacy to be better resourced.’

I have worked as an internal change champion for three decades, the last 9 years of which has been in the energy industry.   In the words of Sioban McHale (Insider’s Guide to Culture Change, 2021): “Culture change is one of the hardest jobs that you will ever do.”  But I can also say that it is one of the most rewarding areas to work in, when you start to see all of the forces aligned, mindsets and behaviours shifting, leaders listening and adapting, and people feeling a sense of hope that “this will work” and we can have a positive impact on our customers. 

So, why is change so hard? The truth is that culture change is complex, and in typical change programs, the more obvious aspects of organisation change are planned and tackled – e.g. structure, process, systems.  However, the more invisible and emotionally challenging elements of personal and cultural change are often left out of the equation.   For organizational change to have real impact, leaders of the change effort need to recognise the importance of the human element of change, and even more importantly, the personal transformation which needs to occur first.  

This year marks the third round of the IAP process, and as such, many signatories have existing mechanisms in place to capture customer outcomes aligned to the Energy Charter principles across their businesses.

Some businesses have working groups chaired with Board members who meet monthly to discuss their progress and ambitions for customers. Others have more organic processes, allowing employees to share the outcomes that they have achieved for their customers and communities within the business.

All of the customer-centric information is being collated, refined and summarised for the purposes of the business’ 2020-21 disclosures which will be submitted to the IAP by 30 September. There’s a focus on the top 3-5 outcomes that have been delivered for customers.

The maturity self-assessment tool, co-created March 2020, enables signatories to assess their maturity against the Energy Charter Principles by reference to articulated criteria, as well as indicating where on the maturity scale they intend to progress to, over what period and how they plan to achieve this progress. 

Most signatories start their maturity self-assessment by leveraging their senior executives internally to have authentic discussions about what levels of maturity their business.