Focus on water saving

The 12-16th May 2025 is UK Water Saving Week. We are encouraging businesses to pledge to reduce their water use and to take simple actions to cut water waste. Despite its rainy reputation, the UK has less water per person than countries like Italy and Spain, and climate change is making this worse, with long dry spells like the one we are having this year leading to droughts. But homes and businesses can help tackle this by cutting water waste. Simple measures include, putting posters up in washrooms with contact details for the FM manager so staff can report leaking toilets and dripping taps, checking bills and doing a basic water audit, and inspecting sites for signs of leaks. For more information follow this link Water Saving Week.

As a water retailer we are always keen to help our customers optimise their water use and cut water waste (see this link for how we can help you Water Efficiency). And we regularly work with other organisations to promote water efficiency. As part of this work, we have just been awarded a MOSL grant. MOSL is the body that coordinates the water retail market in England and Wales, and we have just won a bid to their Market Improvement Fund to help promote water saving for businesses. We are working in the East of England with water saving experts SaveWaterSaveMoney, a fellow water retailer Wave Utilities, water wholesalers Affinity Water, Anglian Water, Cambridge Water, as well as Water Resources East. Project progress and details can be found here NHH Water Efficiency Collaboration Portal – MOSL. The project is starting in the East of England because is officially classified as semi-arid, There are already restrictions on water use for business in the region, meaning that there is no water for businesses to expand, which is already affecting some of our customers.

The project is rolling out a digital engagement platform for businesses. Businesses carry out a self-assessment of the water use of their staff, the SaveWaterSaveMoney GetWaterFit calculator provides information on water use, benchmarking, and offers possible water saving actions. There are a series of simple questions that walk the business through their staff use using a clear interface, and provide graphical presentations. The calculator is also linked to a directory of approved water saving products GetWaterSmart. The calculator focuses on staff use, rather than process use, but areas like washroom use deliver quick, high value savings and are good drivers of behaviour change, once companies are engaged on water use they can approach water retailers and wholesalers for site-specific advice and help on process use. A domestic version of the GetWaterFit calculator has already been used by over 2.7 million households (see this link GetWaterFit), and we envisage businesses to engage with the calculator in the same way. The focus of the project is on the East of England, yet we are happy to engage other retailers, wholesalers and business customers across the whole country with water efficiency, so if you are interested in the water calculator, the project, or water saving in general, please get in touch.