Hydro Tasmania performs a self assessment of its sustainability performance, based on criteria created internally and grounded in industry and international guidelines, Global Reporting Initiative’s G3 Guidelines, the International Hydropower Association (IHA) Sustainability Assessment Protocol and the Energy Supply Association of Australia (esaa) Code of Sustainable Practice.

The sustainability assessment criteria are customised for each of 27 indicators from the generic criteria shown in Table 1. They relate organisational processes and performance to sustainability levels from one (very poor) to five (outstanding). The assessment assigns numerical scores to the indicators which are aggregated into weighted averages for each sustainability element, representing the degree of sustainability. The criteria also provide a framework for Hydro Tasmania to improve its sustainability performance.

Hydro Tasmania’s performance for each of the nine sustainability elements, outlined in the Sustainability Policy, is presented in Table 18 with a summary of issues impacting on the score.

Based on the self assessment, Hydro Tasmania achieved an overall satisfactory sustainability performance level with a score of 3.3 for 2006/07. Our scoring system, described in Table 1, rates a score in the range of 3 as satisfactory/average/moderate.

Despite the slight drop in score from last year’s 3.4, the result is pleasing given the significant financial and environmental challenges experienced due to drought conditions, as well as this being our first full year of trading in the NEM. It takes considerable effort to maintain and improve sustainability performance according to the self assessment criteria.

Since including a commitment to a sustainable future as one of our core values, and establishing a sustainability policy in early 2005, Hydro Tasmania has continued to embed sustainable principles and processes in its business framework. Most notably, it has continued to carry out a detailed, annual self assessment to shed light on its sustainability performance.

esaa, in commending Hydro Tasmania’s 2005/06 Annual Report in its 2006 Sustainability Report Award, commented that the self assessment process continues to be a highlight of our reporting.

Aligning sustainability principles with planning requirements remains a challenge. Hydro Tasmania is currently redesigning business planning responses following the recent organisational restructure, and intends to further incorporate sustainability requirements across the business.

The Self Assessment Process

Now with the benefit of having completed three years of sustainability assessments, Hydro Tasmania is improving its understanding and applying more rigour to the process. This has resulted in some score adjustments
(see Table 18) and downward revision of targets.

The scope for assurance of this report does not include assuring the self assessment scores.

	Figure 1 Sustainability Performance for 2006/07, based on weighted scores Click to enlarge

Targets and Commitments

Targets have been set for each sustainability indicator, and are reported in Table 18 as weighted targets for each sustainability element.

Where Hydro Tasmania is targeting an improvement to its sustainability performance, commitments have been made that will go towards lifting the score. These are contained in the element self assessment summaries.