The latest Policy Outlook paper written by the Better Infrastructure Initiative, Customer stewardship: infrastructure’s missing link, concludes with five recommendations to help achieve their goal of embedding a customer stewardship ethos into every aspect of the infrastructure lifecycle.  They are:

1. Embed customer stewardship in all major decisions: Federal, state and local government must address the missing link in their infrastructure governance – customer stewardship – towards enhanced focus and accountability to customers and function of markets.
2. Enable customers to always shape infrastructure: All public and private sector organisations must embrace and practice customer stewardship values and principles in their project selection and governance processes that enable customers to shape all aspects of the asset life cycle for infrastructure.
3. Reward customer stewardship practices: Investors as owners of infrastructure need to ensure the operators of infrastructure are given the latitude and motivation to use customer stewardship practices, including engaging with and maintaining high standards of customer trust and integrity of assets and services.
4. Motivate a reporting and transparency ethos: Asset recycling programs and other infrastructure divestment and investment processes need to embed a customer stewardship ethos of accountability, and mechanisms for reporting to ensure all decisions will accrete to customer outcomes and benefit the infrastructure system as a whole.
5. Better communicate genuine achievements: Owners and operators need to communicate their customer stewardship achievements, (using case studies, data with their stakeholders) to redress misconceptions and build trust and understanding about quality of planning and management capabilities in preparing for the future.

Read more from the Customer stewardship: infrastructure’s missing link paper.