It’s the second year in a row the UK’s largest water retailer has been recognised in the International Green Apple Environment Awards – which this year saw competition from more than 500 other nominations from across the UK.
It won Gold in the Water Efficiency category – and Silver in the Partnerships category, along with the carbon reduction and for supporting habitats and biodiversity in the UK – and further afield – categories.
Amongst work with organisations large and small, Water Plus has provided over 590 water efficiency devices to a range of sites in six months, between December 2021 and June 12, 2022. It also installed 400 data loggers on water meters in the space of just six months at sites in 2021, to increase water tracking.
The company was presented with its awards at an event in London, which organisers The Green Organisation said was carbon neutral for guests attending, including travel to the event from staff locations.
Andy Hughes, Water Plus Chief Executive, said: “We’re delighted to receive our first Gold in the Green Apple Environment Awards, recognising our work to help organisations and raise awareness around the opportunities and savings – from looking closer at water use, to taking steps to cut waste to limit risks to how businesses and other organisations operate.
“Our technical water expertise and customer information and support is helping cut water waste across England and Scotland and identifying issues early that may cause disruption, which also help keep running costs low. Plus, less water waste means less carbon created, so less Scope 3 emissions, helping towards environmental targets and Net Zero.
“We’re committed to making sustainability and minimising our environmental impact core to our business, our people and our customers. From helping sites install water reduction approaches and extra tracking, along with highlighting how water efficiency helps organisations, to increasing tree-planting in the UK to give a boost to biodiversity and increase green canopies for communities, we’ll continue taking action and helping towards sustainability goals.”
The work between the Water Plus Advanced Services team and organisations in the UK – including installing data loggers on water meters in the last year, which feed information into a smart online portal, has resulted in around £4 million of additional water waste being stopped in the space of just 17 months (and an estimated billion litres of water stopped from being lost unnecessarily)*.
It’s also released a series of podcasts around the importance of organisations looking closer at water use – released on Future Net Zero here – as part of its awareness-raising, engagement and education approach.
Through its engagement with organisations around water use and continually gaining efficiency, Water Plus has increased its market performance on meter reading-related activity.
The company, which have also become Green World Ambassadors this year to encourage more action by organisations to reduce impacts on the environment, was in the top three water retailers in market performance (MPS) scores at the start of this financial year – and in latest figures published for October 2022.** Boosting the amount of meter reads in the market data help to update customer bills on actual water use, reduces bills based on estimated use and help organisations to budget and, in some cases, save energy where less hot water is used.
The Green Apple Awards are run by The Green Organisation – an international, independent, non-profit, non-political environment group that began in 1994 to recognise, reward and promote environmental best practice around the world.
Water Plus was this year also shortlisted in the Water Industry Awards 2022 for Water Retailer of the Year, Water Efficiency Project of the Year and Skills and Workforce Initiative of the Year.
It is also appealing for suggestions for tree-planting sites in the UK, as part of its approach to increase green canopies for communities and give a boost to biodiversity. If you have a suggestion for a site in England or Scotland people can send a message on social media, with #NominateforTrees hashtag and tagging Water Plus UK, or email [email protected] . Brief details on how planting would benefit the area should be included in emails, which should have the subject heading #NominateforTrees. Water Plus will review all suggestions.
More information – and examples – of how Water Plus is helping organisations, is available at: www.water-plus.co.uk/about-us/
Additional notes
** Water Plus handles the largest volumes of meter reading-related activities in the industry. Amongst water retailers with 5,000 or more Supply Points, Water Plus was joint second for its overall performance (data published in April 2022).
Amongst water retailers with 5,000 or more Supply Points (SPIDs), Water Plus is in the top three for market performance (MPS) scores, of the 11 water retailers with 5,000 SPIDs or more, as of the end of October 2022 in published data for the industry. Water Plus also had an MPS above 95% as of data published for 1st October 2022 (95.68%).
* From 1st January 2021 to 26th May 2022, estimated water loss totalling 1333399.46 m3 at an approximate cost of £4m – has now been stopped due to our engagement with organisations (statistic based on actual water meter readings for water loss that has been stopped through isolation or repair). There are 1,000 litres in a cubic metre of water. Estimate based on if the water loss had been running for 12 months.
