Energy, Utilities & Critical Infrastructure — Governance Five™ © Public-Value Governance Guide

In energy and infrastructure settings, Governance Five™ © is used as a repeatable non-technical decision-to-delivery flow. It focuses on questions such as:

• How affordability, equity and reliability principles are reflected in governance decisions.
• How participation and voice are organised between operators, governments, regulators and communities.
• How evidence, risk, modelling, lived experience and hardship insights are aggregated before commitments.
• How public claims about reliability, emissions, resilience or community benefit are grounded in governance evidence.

The Governance Five™ Flow is:

• Govern – Clarify non-technical principles and objectives (reliability, fairness, affordability, resilience, decarbonisation, public value).
• Engage – Identify who must be heard before major non-technical decisions – regulators, governments, customers, communities, market bodies, workforce – and record how they are engaged.
• Aggregate – Bring together data, modelling, risk assessments, hardship information, community input and security considerations into a clear non-technical basis for decisions.
• Deliver – Align non-technical aspects of tariffs, programs, communications, contracts and public commitments with what was agreed in the Govern / Engage / Aggregate stages.
• Evolve – Use incidents, outages, inquiries, complaints, regulator feedback and lived experience to adjust governance settings and document what changed and why.

This flow can be applied at the level of a retailer, network operator, generator fleet, multi-utility group, market body or government program. Technical and regulatory frameworks remain untouched.

Governance Five™ © is concerned with how non-technical decisions are structured, documented and traced – particularly when they affect:

• Access, affordability & hardship – how non-technical choices about tariffs, concessions and support are governed.
• Transition & decarbonisation – how social, regional and community impacts are considered during energy transition.
• Resilience & reliability narratives – how public claims about reliability and resilience are linked to governance evidence.
• Multi-party programs – how government, markets, operators and communities coordinate on shared initiatives.
• Public-value & ESG statements – how broader social and environmental claims sit within governance methods.

The Governance Five™ Flow – Govern → Engage → Aggregate → Deliver → Evolve™ © – can be licensed and applied as a non-technical governance method sitting alongside engineering and regulatory frameworks.

For retailers and customer-facing utilities, Governance Five™ supports non-technical governance of:

• how affordability, hardship and vulnerability principles are set and applied,
• how communities, advocates and regulators are engaged on tariffs and support,
• how data on disconnections, arrears and hardship is aggregated at governance level,
• how public narratives about “fair offers” and support are grounded in evidence.

It does not replace regulatory obligations, ombudsman schemes, default offers or market rules. It structures the governance layer above them.

Network and infrastructure operators can apply Governance Five™ to non-technical governance of:

• how communities and stakeholders are engaged around projects and programs,
• how trade-offs between cost, reliability, visual impact and local effects are considered,
• how regional and social impacts are aggregated and communicated,
• how public claims about “keeping the lights on” and “building resilience” link to governance records.

Engineering, planning and safety standards remain the domain of technical and regulatory frameworks. Governance Five™ structures non-technical governance around those choices.

Government departments, regulators and market bodies can use Governance Five™ to structure non-technical governance around:

• how objectives, principles and trade-offs for reforms are framed and recorded,
• how participants and communities are engaged in non-technical decision processes,
• how evidence, modelling, hardship and risk information are aggregated before major announcements,
• how public statements about reliability, cost and emissions are linked to governance evidence.

It does not alter statutory powers, market rules or technical codes. It enhances transparency of non-technical governance pathways.

Governance Five™ supports non-technical governance where energy transition affects jobs, communities and regional economies by helping organisations:

• clarify principles for fairness, timing and support in transition decisions,
• structure participation for affected communities, workers and local governments,
• aggregate socio-economic, environmental and risk information at governance level,
• align transition narratives with traceable governance evidence.

It does not determine climate policy or technological choices; it structures the non-technical governance around how change is made and explained.

Organisations often make public statements about resilience, reliability and preparedness. Governance Five™ focuses on the non-technical governance of how those statements are formed, including:

• how risk, contingency and stress-testing insights inform governance decisions,
• how cross-entity coordination is reflected in governance records,
• how limitations and residual risks are acknowledged in internal governance,
• how learning from incidents and near-misses feeds into governance adjustments.

Technical assurance frameworks remain in place. Governance Five™ helps make the non-technical governance around those frameworks more transparent.

Governance Five™ supports non-technical governance of ESG and community-impact narratives by helping organisations:

• link commitments and case studies to specific governance decisions,
• co-ordinate contributions across business units and entities,
• document constraints and trade-offs,
• explain changes over time with reference to Governance → Engage → Aggregate → Deliver → Evolve adjustments.

It does not define reporting standards or metrics; it provides a governance method for how narratives are built and maintained.

Auditors, regulators and security agencies often ask: “How did you reach this decision, who was involved, and what did you know?” Governance Five™ can complement existing standards by:

• making non-technical governance pathways more visible and documented,
• showing how stakeholder engagement and evidence aggregation were carried out,
• linking public claims and assurance statements back to governance decisions.

It does not replace engineering, safety, security or audit standards. It offers a structured, licensed governance method that can help organisations demonstrate lawful origin and traceability of non-technical decisions and narratives.