Water is a valuable natural capital asset and at the heart of our business. We strive to improve our own internal water efficiency in addition to promoting sustainable water usage to our customers, stakeholders and members of the public.
South West Water, as the regional water utility across the South West peninsular and beyond, including the Bournemouth area is responsible for supplying water to c.4.24 million customers. Our business involves the extraction of water from the environment, treatment and supply of this water to our customers. It then requires the management and treatment of wastewater returned through the sewerage network before its safe return to the environment. We are regulated for the environmental and efficient management of these activities with our performance reported annually to the regulators including through South West Water’s Annual Performance Report (APR).
Water policy and targets
We have developed a Group-wide Water Management Policy, with the aim of reducing our own water footprint, enabling us to lead by example in water stewardship. The policy sets out to optimise water efficiency by encouraging employees to demonstrate best practice water-saving behaviours and to ensure that facilities are in place to monitor water consumption, reduce leakages, and enable employees to most efficiently use water. We are also investigating how we can further reduce and recycle water usage where possible throughout our operations.
More information about South West Water's water efficiency measures are described in the Water Resources Management Plan (25 year). The plan seeks to prevent increasing customer water demand through the delivery of water efficiency engagement programmes.
We have made the following water reduction commitments by 2025 (against a 2019/20 baseline):
- a 15% reduction in leakage
- 6.2% reduction in customer water consumption
- reduce water use within our wastewater treatment works by 2.8 megalitres/day
Our community
On the demand side, the success of South West Water’s unique and innovative Stop the Drop campaign, where the campaign gained traction as the collective might of the people came together to see a sustained reduction in customer demand (c.5%) over the period, has been a useful learning. We continue to engage with our customers to influence behavioural change, through our now ongoing customer campaign Save Every Drop, and in issuing over 133,000 free water saving devices from water butts to shower heads. At the same time, we are focused on reducing our own usage on our sites.
We run initiatives to educate and engage with the public on steps which can be taken to save on water usage and bills. We offer free water-saving products to all our customers and offer free home audits to high consumption households to reduce household water consumption. Our Think Sink! and Love Your Loo initiatives provide information on how to prevent blockages in pipes and sewage networks, and our Upstream Thinking project applies natural landscape-scale solutions to improve water quality.
Our employees
We run initiatives to educate our staff on water consumption and on how to reduce water wastage. Staff were challenged to save water during Water Saving Week through various activities including water usage reduction competitions and an opportunity to purchase a subsidised water butt. Our directors also took part in a challenge to reduce water use by having Hydrao showerheads installed in their homes. We actively promote Water Saving Week and our Water Smart campaign and encourage our employees across the Group to become Water Saving Ambassadors.
Initiatives to reduce our own freshwater use: Our Water Efficiency Programme
Pennon Group is committed to reducing its own direct water use. Over the past two years, the Group has successfully reduced water use by 11 million litres per day and continues to improve efficiency within its processes. As part of its business plan to 2025, Pennon committed to building two state-of-the-art treatment works in the Bournemouth area, with work progressing well at Alderney and Knapp Mill. Alderney is on track to achieve water into supply by March 2025, benefiting customers with enhanced ceramic membrane treatment. Additionally, upgrades at four works in Devon and Cornwall are underway, with investments made to reduce manganese and install Granular Activated Carbon Treatment.
Pennon Group is actively promoting water efficiency among its customers through various initiatives. South West Water launched the 'Water is Precious' campaign, issuing around 500 water-saving devices daily, and its North Devon smart metering program is 50% complete. The company also introduced a tariff incentive for customers in Cornwall, offering a bill credit if they collectively reduced water consumption, which they achieved. Progressive charging trials for 2024/25 have been launched, including standard seasonal tariffs, rising block tariffs, and peak period seasonal tariffs.
In Bristol, initiatives target customers to use less through water-saving devices and donations to charities promoting water consumption education. SES Water progressed its universal metering program, continued in-home water efficiency assistance, deployed a targeted campaign to gain insights for its 2024 concept, and is designing a water efficiency pilot to provide the best value support to customers.
Pennon Group has established a Water Efficiency program to deliver improvements in all aspects of its direct water use, including a commitment to reducing potable water usage by implementing water reuse and recycling at some major wastewater treatment sites. Through infrastructure investments, customer initiatives, and water reuse and recycling efforts, the Group demonstrates its commitment to water efficiency and conservation, promoting sustainable water use.
Water use monitoring and measurement
The vast majority of water extracted from the environment is for our customers which we define as indirect use. However, to operate the water network and assets, we use water for cleaning and flushing and additionally consume water within our own offices and facilities.
Our water use data can be found within South West Water’s Annual Performance Report or within the Water section of our ESG Databook.
Water stress
Water stress refers to the ability or lack of, to meet the human and ecological demand for water (GRI 20181). The ratio of total annual water withdrawal to total available annual renewable water supply (i.e., baseline water stress) is high (40-80%) or extremely high (>80%) (WRI2). According to this definition, none of our abstraction/withdrawal operations operate in water catchments of water stress.
1GRI 303: WATER AND EFFLUENTS 2018 https://www.globalreporting.org/standards/
2World Resources Institute, Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas, www.wri.org/our-work/project/aqueduct/