Ofwat’s Innovation Fund sets out to encourage, and engage the community in sustainable water management.
Water companies provide drinking water and wastewater services to over 50 million people in England and Wales, with a sewage network that could wrap around the world 13 times. As the population increases and places growing demand on already ageing networks, the sector faces undeniable and urgent challenges that require action now. This, together with a fast-changing climate, means it is critical we all work towards more sustainable water management.
The importance of sustainable water management
One of the most pressing considerations is how we can avoid water waste and make the best use of the resources available. In the UK, we’re privileged that clean, safe drinking water is always available on tap – quite literally – and that our wastewater from the sinks, toilets, dishwashers and washing machines is easily flushed away. The supply of drinking water and removal of so-called ‘grey water’ – lightly used water such as that emptied from a dishwasher or washing machine – is simply not a problem consumers need to worry about.
However, as we face increasingly uncertain seasonal and weather patterns, driven largely by climate change, we could struggle to continue to maintain the equilibrium of water we need. Droughts could leave the country parched and on hosepipe bans for months at a time, with consequential sudden downpours hitting dry, cracked ground and causing storm overflows due to lack of absorption.
The vital task of managing and delivering sustainable water management is essential. Beyond the water sector itself, cities, urban planning, transport, logistics and energy all play roles in helping ensure that this water is reasonably and effectively managed. That’s why it’s so important that the water sector takes the lead in bringing the right minds together to guard this precious resource.
Moreover, there won’t be water to guard unless we can maintain healthy, functioning ecosystems. These are crucial for the water sector to deliver the services and outcomes needed by people, communities, and the environment. There is a shared responsibility to protect people and the natural world; from preserving precious water supplies, helping customers and communities, and preserving and enhancing wildlife.
Why we’re establishing policies that protect our future water
Water companies have always had a clear environmental and societal footprint. They’re one of a handful of key long-term stakeholders in their communities, providing services which are both essential and environmentally sensitive, and have a significant role to play in helping to address some of the main challenges society faces. There are increasing societal expectations that company decisions are driven by a broad range of environmental and social factors.
In keeping with this, the last few years have seen Ofwat develop and implement a number of policies that prioritise protection, improvement and regulation within sustainable water management. For example, at the start of last year (January, 2022), we published a position paper on net zero ambitions, welcoming the Water UK 2030 Routemap on carbon as an important step towards the industry becoming net zero by 2050.
The paper highlighted that in order to achieve that goal, water companies must go beyond what is proposed in the Routemap by also tackling operational and embodied carbon emissions; carbon that is emitted while infrastructure is being run, as well as being built.
As part of this, Ofwat called on water companies to align their plans to the national government’s net zero targets in England and Wales. We know that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions produced by water companies need to be reduced and ideally eliminated rather than using offsets to reduce their emissions.
In developing their approaches to net zero, water companies must ensure their plans are clear, transparent, and capable of being understood by the wider public. This is crucial as it will allow stakeholders – including local leadership, other utility suppliers and ultimately users – to appropriately support and challenge plans, focusing on achieving the best value for customers and the environment.
The role of innovation in ensuring a sustainable future of water
Ofwat is also investigating other ways to help water companies reach net zero – particularly through innovation and our £200m Innovation Fund.
The Innovation Fund, which was launched in November 2020, was started to grow the water sector’s capacity to innovate, enabling it to better meet the evolving needs of customers, society and the environment. Now on the sixth competition, the fund seeks to encourage new ways of working that go beyond business-as-usual innovation practices in the water industry, in particular, increasing and improving collaboration and building partnerships from within and outside the water sector.
The fund has awarded over £105m to 77 projects so far. The competitions – most of which have targeted the water sector, but all of which have encouraged collaboration – have recognised ideas from water companies alongside universities and institutes, retailers, start-ups, technology companies, charities, and small businesses.
Winners of the competitions so far include initiatives to tackle environmental problems related to the water industry, such as greenhouse gas emissions, projects to prevent and address leakage, and technology to help citizens monitor the health and pollution levels of local rivers.
Although many water companies have already started to innovate themselves – introducing state-of-the-art technology to tackle climate change, including advanced reservoir systems, sensors, satellites and drones – this fund was a real turning point in enabling and accelerating bolder ideas. The funding pot has permitted out-of-the-box thinking without the same funding challenges that would be met if water companies were working alone.
Why is it important to engage communities in sustainable water management?
For all that water companies can do to generate and implement methodology and technology to boost sustainable water management, these changes can’t take place in silo. We need entire communities to truly see the benefits of innovative practices. Whether this is business partners, industry groups, local leaders or everyday consumers, changes require numerous community touchpoints to become meaningful and productive.
Within the winning cohorts of the Ofwat Innovation Fund, there are a number of examples that show how important it is to engage communities in sustainable water practices from the outset.
The first of these is Enabling Water Smart Communities, which takes a fresh look at how resources are used in new housing developments and focuses on how to reduce water use in the home – in part through reusing greywater.
This is an example of an innovation that requires the immediate local community – the homeowners – to work with their water company to change their behaviour and water usage. If potential users are engaged from the outset, the results could be significant.
Similarly, the Severn Trent Home Energy Recovery Unit (HERU) team is testing converting plastic and wet wipes found in wastewater to energy. They are looking to upgrade an existing under-sink burner unit and explore uses for the hydrogen it produces.
Currently, 75% of drain blockages are caused by flushing wet wipes down the toilet,1 not only is this a significant pollutant affecting animals and wildlife, but also a major cause of sewer blockages.
If the new energy unit can be adapted and rolled out, it will be available for commercial and domestic sites and will rely on communities of colleagues and homeowners to see if it is a plausible way to manage one of the water sector’s biggest challenges.
Finally, just this year, we’ve seen the launch of the Big River Watch – a new app developed by Rivers Trust alongside numerous partners, as part of CaSTCo – another initiative funded by the Ofwat Innovation Fund. The app, which is available to all members of the public, encourages citizen science by asking everyone to complete a short survey when spending time near their local river.
The data gathered from these surveys will be collated and analysed by experts, then used to inform understanding of local river health and areas for improvement.
By seeking the involvement of local communities, this project will ensure accurate and up-to-date monitoring of river health across the nation.
Ensuring sustainability in the water sector by tackling carbon
Sustainable water management is just one element of ensuring the sector becomes more environmentally friendly overall. The sector needs to improve a number of different climate-related issues for water itself to be sustainable.
One early competition winner has particular potential to help solve one of the biggest sustainability challenges affecting the industry – the issue of whole life carbon, which describes carbon from all stages of operation and use.
The UK water sector has a long history of measuring, managing and reducing carbon emissions. The UKWIR Carbon Accounting Workbook was created in 2006. Two years later, frameworks for measuring whole life carbon were released.
This early collaboration provided the foundation for sector performance today – leading to the ambitious goal of achieving net zero emissions before the government target of 2050.
Although the sector pledged to continue to reduce the capital carbon (the carbon emissions associated with the creation of an asset) in 2019 to help reach net zero operational emissions by 2030, to date, there is no system to accurately capture whole life carbon metrics.
The Enabling Whole Life Carbon project set out to tackle several challenges that the water sector still faces when working towards net-zero emissions, better carbon data systems and integration and data interpretation.
The team developed a common carbon (the universal method of measuring a building’s carbon footprint) cost-management framework, aligned to industry standards (PAS 2080), and digital design tools to enable the visualisation of carbon and cost hotspots in real-time so that multiple parts of the value chain could be viewed.
The framework also includes guidance on building a carbon data library, calculating whole life carbon, aligning carbon, cost and data models, visualising data, embedding visualisation into data and governance processes, and managing organisational change.
Enabling Whole Life Carbon is, therefore, one example of how innovation can help to secure more sustainable water management for the industry by tangibly providing a method that can encourage companies to meet important policy targets.
Restoring water ecosystems as part of industry sustainability
Another Ofwat Innovation Fund winner helping to improve wider industry sustainability is Project Seagrass. This innovation, which seeks to boost biodiversity, capture carbon and improve water sustainability, will initially look to provide a blueprint for restoring seagrass in the UK, creating opportunities to ‘rewild’ the sea and reduce carbon and nitrogen emissions.
Seagrass meadows enhance the stability of the coastal zone, trapping carbon in the seabed, boosting water quality and, with it, wildlife. The project will provide a road map to unlock the ‘blue carbon’ potential (carbon captured by marine ecosystems) of seagrass restoration for the water industry and beyond.
Recent estimates suggest that seagrass loss in the UK may be as high as 92%. This project aims to create blue carbon frameworks that would enable wider roll-out and incentivise the use of carbon offsets in the UK.
Currently, there is significant demand for this with industries looking to move beyond tree planting. Introducing a blue carbon framework will ultimately lead to this as a possibility – not only for the UK but also internationally.
A sustainable future for water
Although there is plenty more to be done to reach a point where we have a truly sustainable water sector, we have also achieved a lot – largely through innovation.
From initiatives that better monitor, track, and capture carbon, to the rewilding of natural waterways, it is clear that new technologies, methodologies and scientific breakthroughs hold the keys to a better, more effective use of our water resources.
It is exciting to know that our funding is driving part of these changes and we hope that not only will they help the sector to meet key targets, but also provide benefits for wider society and the environment for many years to come.
References
- Water UK, Feb 2023
Please note, this article will also appear in the sixteenth edition of our quarterly publication.
