Blog – Extreme weather highlighting importance of innovation

Innovation is essential if water companies are to adapt to future challenges such as climate change and population growth, says British Water’s director Paul Mullord

As I write this, several of us at British Water are preparing for the next in the series of our Innovation Exchanges, this one with South West Water.  It will be held in Exeter and there is a healthy degree of trepidation about the travelling arrangements and the disruption there might be due to the bad weather.  The weather has rarely been something we have had to worry much about until recently it seems, and whatever the reasons, there is little doubt that the weather we have right now is at the extreme end of normal. 

Compared to the impact the weather is having on many people at the moment, any potential disruption my colleagues and I might experience is likely to be trivial.  Water companies are often and unfairly seen by many people as being in some way responsible for flooding.  Those people are often the victims of flooding.  As a water company CEO explained recently, meeting those victims, and seeing their frustration, anger and pain, it is often more appropriate and humane to offer sympathy than to try to correct any misconceptions they may have as to the causes.  Pictures in the news and interviews with those who are being affected leaves me in little doubt that these events are in many ways unprecedented; they also, unfortunately, leave me with little confidence that they won’t be repeated and that there may not be very long to wait.  

A changing climate is one of the challenges that we may all have to face.  For the water industry, it is not the only one.  Population growth, a changing society, rising energy costs, affordability, stricter treatment standards and abstraction restrictions all threaten the industry’s equilibrium.  There is also the most radical shake-up of regulation we have ever seen and the prospect of competition to contend with.  Along with identifying these challenges comes the realisation that if we are going to meet them, we will have to do things differently.  This has led to a step-change in approach from what has historically been a staid and risk-adverse industry.  I can remember seeing tender documents that said alternative and innovative solutions would be welcomed, provided it could be proved that they had worked successfully for at least 15 years. 

There is little wonder then that ‘innovation’ has become the new buzzword. Companies that once said that when it came to trying new ideas, they wanted to be ‘leaders of the following pack’ are now saying they want to be trail blazers.  This new enthusiasm for innovation is not universal, but it is spreading.  If British Water had suggested running an event like an innovation Exchange 5 years ago, I doubt we would have had any takers.  Our Innovation Exchange with South West Water will be our thirteenth and the second repeat event with a water company.  Others are planned and discussions are ongoing with a number of other companies and client organisations about their first or repeat events.

Paul Mullord will be chairing a debate entitled ‘Delivering Innovation through Alliances and Partnerships AMP6’ at Sustainability Live on April 3. For more information and to book your free place, see www.sustainabilitylive.com