Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | NOVEMBER 2022 | 33 What has been your career highlight thus far? Can I have more than one? I think my rst project for Yorkshire Water was a massive highlight. It taught me the research for implementation could actually change the world, and I've been hooked on that ever since. I also started Young Water Professionals in southern Africa, beginning with four people and 500 Rands – about £25. Now there are about 10,000 young profes- sionals in the region. Then, most recently, the Trial Reservoir at Isle – hands down the most exciting, and probably the most important, thing I've done so far. What is the biggest challenge you've faced during your time in utilities? The biggest challenge has got to be compliance. It's so diˆ cult to do the right thing when you're swimming against a tide of red tape, which is intended to stop people from doing the wrong thing but actually all it does is cripple the people that have got the idea and aim at heart. What's the best piece of advice you've been given? Do something that frightens you once a year. Move countries, apply for promotion, or if it's nothing career oriented then, I don't know, bungee jump – but stay out of your comfort zone because it's a trap. What do you think is the key to creating the conditions for innovation within the utilities sector? A culture shiŒ ! All the things we think are sti' ing innovation boil down to cultural issues. Not enough funding for innovation? Well, that's because we didn't prioritise it enough to allocate funding – that's a cultural issue. Not enough time to consider innovating during our projects? Well, that's because we didn't provide enough time to think about innova- tion, we didn't see it as important enough – that's a culture issue. Which other industry do you feel that utilities can learn most from when creating the conditions for innovation? You could pick any industry where the product is worth more than water. Oil and gas, for example, can teach us a lot of lessons about pipe condition assessment and maintenance because they've spent a fortune keeping much more valuable products inside pipes than we have with water. What excites you most about the next 10 years in the utilities sector – any trends, tech or speci• c innovations? The thing that excites me the most is how viewpo ints that would have been considered "hippyish" or an envi- ronmental activist's stance a few years ago are becoming much more mainstream. The change is happening way too slowly, but everybody is aware of climate change, the e• ects of climate change, the catastrophic new weather patterns we're seeing. I hope humanity as a whole is moving towards consensus that we can't carry on doing nothing. What is the change you'd most like to see within the utilities industry? I want to see new mindsets! I want to see the willingness to change policies if the policies defeat the purpose of activity being done. I want to see an openness to doing something a di• erent way, even in a compliance heavy organisation. I'm frustrated by people hiding behind policy when their own organisation wrote the policies and those people could change them, if they wanted to. What do you think is the biggest challenge facing the utilities sector at present? Our biggest challenge is inertia of opinion – what's been good enough before is no longer good enough. We didn't come out of the Stone Age because we ran out of stones, it's human nature to nd better ways of doing things. Industry is accepting that change is not only inevitable, but it's good. Which issues or opportunities within the industry don't you feel get enough airtime? I think we give too much airtime to why it's so hard to do things rather than what we could be doing instead. Turning best practice into common practice is extremely diˆ cult – it's common to nd articles, features, documentaries about a single example of something amazing and unusual, it's much harder to nd examples of that something amazing becoming mainstream, turning into what everybody does all the time. I think rolling out best practice across businesses and industries is something that is not very glamorous but needs more exposure, and the people that have suc- ceeded to turn something exciting into something now quite mundane should be celebrated much more than they are. Isle Utilities' head of Trial Reservoir, Dr Jo Burgess, discusses the trap of staying in a comfort zone, swimming against a tide of red tape, and the cultural issues stifl ing innovation. prioritise it enough to allocate funding – that's a cultural issue. Not enough time to consider innovating during our projects? Well, that's because we didn't provide enough time to think about innova- tion, we didn't see it as important enough – that's a culture issue. Which other industry do you feel that utilities can learn most from when creating the conditions for innovation? You could pick any industry where the product is worth more than water. Oil and gas, for example, can teach us a lot of lessons about pipe condition assessment and maintenance because they've spent a fortune keeping much Q&A Meet the innovators

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