From stronger legislation to a refreshed operating model and a new five-year Strategic Plan, 2021–22 was a big year for Environment Protection Authority Victoria (EPA).

Throughout the changes, achievements and challenges, our staff have remained focused on our key objective – protecting human health and the environment from the harmful effects of pollution and waste.

New legislation, new powers, better ways of protecting the environment

The launch of the Environment Protection Act 2017 (EP Act 2017) on 1 July 2021 was a historic moment for EPA, for Victoria and for environmental protection. With a clear focus on prevention and through the identification of priority risks of harm, we are now able to get ahead of environmental harm before it happens. The act gives EPA the power to take strong action when and where needed. 

We’ve taken necessary measures to investigate and lay charges on a range of matters, many of which are currently before the courts.

We’ve made great use of science and technology to monitor and investigate, including using drones to access sites and gather intelligence. This kind of information provides essential evidence should it be required.

Download our annual report 

As part of our preparation of our Annual Report of Operations for 2021–22, we’ve dug deeper into what worked and what we need to work on, so we can continue to meet our objective – for community, business, industry and the environment.

Our annual report includes:

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Annual report - Year in review

Video transcript

Lots of achievements I'm proud of this year.

It's how the organisation embraced our OKR framework. And really was very crisp in what is the most important things  for us to focus on.

Really good project planning, that sat under that and then the quarterly reviews where we continue to adjust our priorities to make sure that we were focused on. You know the most important things, but also that when managing our workloads, so we can, it's sustainable in the organisation.

I'm a Graphic Designer and I work on all the branding stuff, all visual communications that go out to the external public and also internally as well.

My Proudest moment would be...part of the team that supported the care about landfill response.

Being involved in community information sessions. Talking to the community about  what we do in terms of rehabilitating the sites and the potential impacts  of the sites in terms of emissions and what it means to human health and environment.

My proudest achievement from the past year would be working on the priority harm work with preventative projects in the water space, so preventing harm to the water ways around Victoria from chemical spills in industrial estates.

And... trying to really engage now with the traditional owners. And really getting the regions to reach out and strengthening those relationships and its been really great because we have had some traditional owners come out on the inspections, so we have had Wurundjeri come to Thomastown  with North-Met which is amazing... and  Bunurong came to Williamstown North with West-Met.

So that was really good. 

I am proudest of the Aboriginal Inclusion Action Plan which started in 2019. It was a 3-year plan. When we, when we put it together, it was words on the paper and at the end of this 3 years 2022 we've actually turn those words into meaningful actions.

540 EPA Staff have done cultural awareness training, 120 have been out on country with 11 traditional owners. We are building our workforce  strategy and we have achieved what we said we would do in those 3 years. And I'm really proud that we've done that, its not me, its been a collective effort.

There's always a lot of questions that we might not know the answer to, particularly around the emerging contaminants area which is where I'm really passionate about. Being a regulator you get a different experience than a researcher, and a different experience than a consultant, and you get to  actually make change.

Through the work with citizen science, I take that one step further and I see that change for communities and I hear from them how the work that we are doing has impacted how they learn about their environment.

Its the response of the science team to provide information, to provide science for the citizens in providing evidence-based data about what's in the water,  what's in the sediment, how is impacted their gardens, and for us to be really responsive and providing not only information but advice and guidance,  right across Victoria.

Being involved in the recruitment process for a few different roles both within my unit and outside the unit, it's great to come and see new 
faces in the organisation and know that you have been a part of that. And and bringing in new talent and building the capability  of the organisation.

The community

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To get in front of the community and say This is what we're about, this  is how we can support our communities.

This is how we can protect our  communities, so important and I'm really proud about how  the organisation embraced it.


Reviewed 23 February 2023