As a water company, we’re acutely aware of how the weather and climate affect our business so it’s vital we plan ahead to make sure we’re well prepared for any change.
The Climate Change Adaptation Report is our assessment of how climate change will affect us, as a business, and the risks we need to take into account and mitigate for.
Our report sets out the 12 key headline risks we foresee as a business, mitigation we’ve already undertaken and further work we plan to do in the future to reduce these risk areas further.
From changing rainfall and river levels to rising sea levels and temperatures, we want to hear your thoughts on how we’re planning to adapt our business to the changing climate.
Creating the report
Our latest draft Climate Change Adaptation document incorporates various reports and research which have helped shape our most recent long term plans, including:
- 2019 Business Plan
- Water Resources Management Plan 2019
- Drought Plan May 2022-2027
- Route to Operational Carbon Net Zero
Alongside these, we’ve also used a range of externally produced reports including The UK Climate Predictions 2018 and UK Climate Change Risk Assessments.
Report highlights
Our 2021 - 2026 report highlights include:
- Investing £90.6 million during 2020/21 improving our infrastructure and providing better water quality and reliability for our customers, but we’re not stopping there. We have a whole host of future plans in the pipeline which include building two new reservoirs, reducing leakage by 15 per cent and trialling nature-based solutions to protect our environment through partnership working.
- Undertaking flood resilience studies, developed a Beach Management Plan, built sea defences and improved our power facilities to keep sites up and running in the event of extreme weather.
- Plans to carry out £1.3 million of flood prevention improvements to reduce the risk of interruptions to almost one million customers.
- Continued working with partners and landowners to improve raw water quality, the natural environment and key habitats within our supply area.
A more detailed action plan will be created off the back of this document.
Our public consultation
Between 13 October 2021 and 10 November 2021 we publicly consulted on the draft report which set out the 12 key risks we foresee as a business, mitigation we’ve already undertaken and further work we plan to do in the future to reduce these risks further.
We received nine responses from a range of organisations and we thank all those who responded for taking the time to review the documents and submit feedback.
Documents
In December 2021 we published our final reports which you can view here:
To view our previous (round two) 2015 Climate Change Adaptation Report, click here.