At the young age of 13, Peter worked with his father in his irrigation business.
Years later he started his own contracting business – working to install large scale irrigation systems for business and local government. Unfortunately for Peter, the Millennium Drought brought with it immediate harsh water restrictions that crippled his business.
From this moment on Peter was committed to ensuring that local governments improve knowledge and implementation of products and water efficiency so that droughts and warmer climates could be planned for and managed ahead of restrictions. Encouraging government to be proactive would ensure business like his own would add value and remain in business when the challenging times hit again.
It was soon after this that Peter was introduced to SAWM and applied for a position on the Independent panel. He brings a lot of commercial experience, a wealth of scaled irrigation and plumbing systems and advice to the panel.
Peter explained that he believes SAWM holds a unique place in the market where it is able to inform consumers, manufacturers and governing bodies about what’s available and what works water efficiently. He added that the future of SAWM may well be to evaluate whole systems on their water practises as well as their environmental impacts. Thereby becoming a mark of best practice giving grocers, dairy farmers, producers, manufacturers etc. a point of difference and third party endorsement for their systems.
In the meantime, now that many of the States are experiencing drought, he thinks SAWM will really be able to make a difference and the more the mark is shared the greater efficiencies can be gained by communities across of the nation.
Peter believes water is the biggest concern we face in Australia not least for drinking and agriculture but in business and communities broadly. Water is his biggest passion and today he is not only one of our longest standing panel members but he makes a livelihood in educating clients to ‘do the right thing’ with regards to water as owner of Water Wise Consulting.
His education practises continue at home where his family uses water every day. He has a plunge pool for cooling off rather than a huge lap pool and is looking into secondary water supplies for his house since it’s in the middle of a bush fire zone. He’s even shopping for Wi-Fi managed shower timers to ensure the kids take shorter showers – whether they like it or not!