Partnerships With Purpose: How Melbourne Water Solves Problems at System Scale

Melbourne Water serves more than 5.5 million people. Its supply is under pressure from climate change, population growth and infrastructure that is more than a century old. In this episode of Exec Exchange, Managing Director Nerina Di Lorenzo tells host Piers Clark that the utility cannot get through a once-in-a-generation transition by improving its own operations bit by bit. She explains how three deliberately designed partnerships let Melbourne Water take on problems that are too large, too complex or too slow to solve alone.

A Utility That Touches the Whole Water Cycle

Melbourne Water has an unusually broad remit. It is the bulk water and wastewater wholesaler, supplying three retail water corporations. It is also the floodplain manager and processes around 23,000 planning permits a year. It looks after 25,000 kilometers of waterways for biodiversity. It is the Catchment Management Authority for its region, which gives it responsibility for land management practices.

This breadth puts the utility at the center of a crowded system. It also explains why partnership is central to how Melbourne Water operates rather than something it does on the side. The supply outlook shows the pressure clearly. Surface water provides about 70% of Melbourne’s water today, and by 2050 that share is expected to be closer to 30 to 40%. Di Lorenzo says a shift of that size requires new solutions, reconfigured systems, work on regulation and legislation, and trust with the community built over time.

Partnering With Traditional Owners on the Yarra

The first partnership is with First Peoples. Melbourne Water works with five traditional owner groups: the Wurundjeri, Bunurong, Wadawurrung, Taungurung and Gunaikurnai. It has progressively put formal agreements in place for land and natural resource management on country.

The flagship of this work is Burndap Birrarung Burndap Umarkoo, also known as the Yarra Strategic Plan. Its foundation is the first legislation in Australia to recognize a river as a living entity. That legislation requires nature-positive outcomes and makes Melbourne Water the coordinating body. Eight local councils, seven state government agencies and six committees of management have endorsed the plan, all in partnership with traditional owners.

The plan is held to account in two ways. An independent report is tabled in Parliament each year. Leaders also take part in an annual yarning circle, a First Peoples practice for working through complex issues and reaching consensus. In it, elders ask leaders directly what they have done. Di Lorenzo says this creates real personal accountability because the people involved value the relationship.

The Accord: When the Best Community Outcome Prevails

The second partnership, The Accord, was formed in 2022. Its members are Melbourne Water, Melbourne’s three retail water corporations and Barwon Water in Geelong. The partners initially came together on water security. They face strong growth in the city’s north and west, changes to future water sources, and new ways of moving water around the network.

The partnership is built on one principle that every member signed up to: the best overall community outcome prevails. If a change benefits the wider community, the partners support it. If that change leaves one member worse off, the others commit to help reduce the impact.

Di Lorenzo says this principle gave the group both the tools and the trust to remove barriers that had blocked progress in the past. The Accord has worked with government on reforms to water entitlements in the South Central Pool. It is modernizing bulk supply agreements that have been in place for 30 years. It has also contributed to long-term water security planning and to a bipartisan task force on water security.

The principle has a cost for its members. Melbourne Water has changed the timing of some of its revenue over a five-year period so that customers experience a smoother price path. In doing so, it accepted more short-term risk for the sake of the end customer.

The NetZero Partnership: Learning Without Repeating the Work

The third partnership is global. Nitrous oxide is one of the hardest emissions challenges in sewage treatment. It is nearly 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide and is difficult to measure and capture. Melbourne Water put out a call for collaborators through an Isle forum. That call connected it with Aarhus Vand in Denmark and Severn Trent in the UK, both of which were running similar research.

The three utilities formed the NetZero Partnership in 2022. Together they target around one million tons of combined annual carbon emissions. Gruppo CAP in Milan has since joined. By pooling their research, the partners have learned how to optimize processes to cut nitrous oxide production in the short term while they work toward larger capture and avoidance strategies.

The partnership has also fed into the Global Water Research Coalition. Through the coalition, University of Queensland researchers have been developing the first practical protocol to monitor and quantify nitrous oxide emissions at full-scale wastewater treatment plants.

Piers Clark notes the main benefit of this kind of partnership. When a partner on another continent learns something, the others can take that learning without spending the time and money to repeat the work themselves.

Why the Culture Supports It

Partnership takes time and resources. It also requires an organization to admit that it does not have every answer. Di Lorenzo says this has been strongly accepted at Melbourne Water, from the board to frontline teams. The main reason is that each partnership addresses work the utility would have to do anyway. Without the partnerships, Melbourne Water would be doing that work alone.

She also challenges the stereotype that engineers and scientists guard their information closely. In her experience, they are curious, and curiosity wins out every time. The chance to learn faster and grow quicker is what keeps people committed to these partnerships.

Closing Thoughts

Di Lorenzo started her career on oil rigs in Bass Strait. She then spent nearly 20 years in local government before moving to Melbourne Water. Her advice to her younger self follows the same logic as her partnerships: stay open to detours, trust your instincts, and bring a diverse set of voices to the table, because that is when the best things happen. For water leaders facing climate pressure, growth and aging assets, Melbourne Water offers a practical model. Partnerships work when they are built around shared problems, governed by clear principles, and kept accountable to the people they serve.