On 12th November 2020, Water UK launched the Net Zero 2030 Routemap – a ground-breaking plan to deliver a net zero water supply for UK customers by 2030. It is the world’s first sector-wide commitment of its kind. The Net Zero 2030 Routemap sets out the industry’s vision for how water companies, which together produce almost a third of UK industrial and waste process emissions, will play their part in tackling climate change by reaching net zero two decades ahead of the UK Government’s legally binding target of 2050.
There is no single solution that can achieve net zero on its own, so a broad combination of approaches and collaboration between water companies, policy makers and the supply chain will be needed. In this blog we’ll take a look at the plans and goals that have been put into place, and how Advizzo can help water companies with their demand management targets by reducing customer consumption.
The route to net zero
The Routemap offers a 10-point plan for decarbonization. The sector’s goal is to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 10 million tonnes. The 10 point plan includes six commitments by the industry, alongside four recommendations for policy makers that will help protect customer bills and keep investment costs down while supporting the development of green skills and nature-based solutions as part of the economic recovery.
The development of the Routemap builds on the significant progress made by the sector in recent years. Since 2011 it has almost halved operational emissions through a combination of energy efficiency measures, renewable energy generation, and the production of biomethane from sewage treatment processes.
It has been developed using over a decade’s worth of detailed data and provides water companies with a framework on which to create and cost their own net zero action plans.
As a result of the routemap, by 2030 Water UK aims to see:
1. Greater effort to save precious water — water companies accelerating leakage reduction by up to 7% beyond existing 2030 forecasts coupled with per capita consumption falling by a further 6 litres/head/day as a result of consumer goods labeling and other demand-side efficiency measures.
2. Rapid deployment of renewable energy generation — making use of the changing power market to invest in approaching up to 80% of some companies’ daily demand with solar and wind power for our electricity needs, and biogas from wastewater for our process heat.
3. Delivering greater energy efficiency — going further than ever, with programs to identify equipment renewals in energy intensive areas such as blowers for process treatment, pumps capable of higher efficiencies operating in smarter networks, new biogas boilers providing low-carbon heat at the times our treatment needs it most.
4. Greater export of energy to others — more export of power and biomethane at times when we have a surplus, reducing costs for our customers, and helping others decarbonize.
5. Deploying new vehicles — transitioning operational and maintenance vehicles away from fossil fuels, by working with vehicle manufacturers to boost the availability of suitable vans and heavy goods vehicles that run on low carbon fuels such as electricity and biogas.
6. Tackling process emissions — deploying new measures to directly monitor our process emissions to inform global emissions reporting methodologies and designing measures to mitigate the impacts ahead of 2050, as well as searching for new solutions.
7. Planting trees and restoring habitats — laying the foundation for sequestration of carbon for decades to come by changing to carbon-retaining uses of our land and working with partners to manage improvements at catchment-scale.
8. Deploying natural solutions — meeting the challenges of growth and new treatment demands using nature based solutions as the first choice.
9. Developing offsets — identifying the best opportunities for decarbonization in the UK and supporting the development of a robust UK market for businesses to procure offsets to counter hard to abate emissions such as from wastewater treatment.
“With the right support in place, we could be one of the most cost-effective sectors to decarbonize, serving as an important demonstration of the art of the possible as the UK pursues its wider ambitions to achieve net zero in 2050.”
Christine McGourty, CEO, Water UK
How Advizzo can help
As part of Water UK’s commitment, water companies have been set targets for reducing domestic customer’s consumption. This includes accelerating leakage reduction by 7% beyond existing 2030 forecasts. It also tasks water companies with reducing per capita consumption by a further 6 litres per person, per day, through demand-side efficiency measures.
This is where Advizzo can help support Water UK and water company efforts. We work with water companies around the world to help them engage with their customers and enable them to save water. You can read about some of our recent projects on our case studies page, including our work with Anglian Water, South East Water and Yorkshire Water.
Our data science and behavioral science based customer engagement solutions are proven to help customers reduce their water consumption. There are three ways in which we can help the UK’s water companies with demand management.
- Increased customer engagement and insight
With our software, we send personalized, behavioral science based communications to individual customers, relating to their household’s water consumption. Our customer engagement platform and communications approach increases engagement between customer and supplier and is proven to motivate customers to make behavioral changes to reduce their water consumption. - Use smart meter data to reduce leaks
Recent advances in intelligent water meter technology have improved the quantitative monitoring of water supply and consumption. Using smart meter data we can indicate high water consumption to individual household’s that might have a potential leak – encouraging customers to monitor consumption, and helping water companies be proactive in detecting and fixing leaks. - Help water companies cross sell/up sell products to reduce consumption
The increased customer engagement that our platform and solution delivers serves to increase customer confidence in their supplier. Growing traction in engagement offers water companies the ideal opportunity to gain a better understanding of their individual customers, enabling them to target market households with suggestions for products and services that could further reduce water consumption.
At Advizzo our mission is to use insights from individual household’s data to change the way they think about their consumption and motivate them to reduce it. We believe in a world where everyone can use their own data to consume the exact amount of water that they need, and we are already working with almost half the utility companies in the UK to help them reduce customer consumption.
If you’d like to understand more about our behavioral science based customer engagement softwares and solutions, and how we can help you meet Water UK’s net zero targets, then get in touch today. We’d love to hear from you.