As part of our Countdown to COP series, Anglian Water’s chief executive argues that climate change mitigation and adaptation must be given equal focus. He also discusses the key challenges for the water sector in achieving net zero, including the approach that should be taken to offsetting emissions.

COP26

What do you want to hear from the conference?

We want to see global commitment to meaningful action on both net zero and resilience.

What should the legacy of COP26 be?

There are three really key areas I want to see action on. On net zero, we need binding carbon budgets, similar to those developed by the UK’s Climate Change Committee. Current commitments just don’t add up to achievement of the Paris Agreement limits to global temperature. On resilience, we need meaningful action on adaptation. For far too long, adaptation has been neglected, given much less focus than the net zero challenge despite the immediate and local benefits that it provides. I want to see all countries commit to building resilience, through a set of detailed and financed adaptation plans. This should start with vulnerable sectors, such as those associated with water. And finally, on finance, I want COP to deliver a comprehensive financing framework which encourages the development of investable projects to deliver net zero carbon and resilience.

Is your company actively participating in COP26?

We’re co-leads of the water theme at the Resilience Hub.

We’re running an event in the Blue Zone on 5 November sharing how adaptation action can deliver social and environmental prosperity to a region when it is done in collaboration with other stakeholders.  We’re lucky enough to have some brilliant speakers joining that event, including Emma Howard Boyd (Chair of the Environment Agency) and Steve Barclay (Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Minister for the Cabinet Office and MP for North-East Cambridgeshire), and the event is being chaired by Dr Kala Vairavamoorthy, the Executive Director of the International Water Association. We’ll use case studies from the Fenlands of the East of England and the Asian Mega Deltas (focusing on the Mekong and Red River deltas in Vietnam and the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna delta in Bangladesh and India) to demonstrate the value of integrated approaches to adaptation.

I’ll also be speaking at a number of other events in both the Blue and Green Zones in my capacity as Anglian Water CEO, as co-sponsor of the water industry’s net zero commitment and co-chair of the Corporate Leaders Group.  I’m aiming to be an optimistic voice showing how net zero and resilience can be delivered and looking to forge new international connections to accelerate progress.

Has the UK done enough this year to position itself as a world leader on climate change?

The UK has positioned itself as a leader on climate change, most notably through its commitment to a legally binding net zero target.  But there’s more to be done.  Anglian Water was one of 82 businesses that sent a letter to the Prime Minister in September 2021 setting out our support for climate action and highlighting the need for the UK Government to lay out a coherent, integrated and Treasury-supported Net Zero Strategy. It urged the Prime Minister to align economic and fiscal policy with its decarbonisation strategy in order to build confidence for businesses to act at speed and scale, while sending a clear message to the world that the UK is taking a concerted leadership position on climate change.

Walking the talk

When is your company planning to get to net zero?

We’ve set out a comprehensive 2030 routemap that sets out in detail how we’ll reach net zero. It’s founded on a three-step hierarchy: reducing emissions, decarbonising our electricity supply and removing or offsetting our residual emissions.

Our biggest reductions will be delivered through our energy efficiency and renewable energy generation and storage – by installing up to 238 GWhs of solar generation on and around our own sites, through power purchase agreements and implementing energy efficiency measures that’ll reduce power demand by 58GWhs per year – that’s equivalent to the electricity demand of over 15,000 UK homes.

We’ll also procure green electricity for all our remaining grid requirements.

Decarbonising our vehicle fleet is another key element of our strategy – we’ll be replacing 90 per cent of all small fleet vehicles with electric equivalents by 2030, gradually switching medium-sized vehicles to hydrogen or alternative fuels such as biomethane and changing 55 per cent of our HGVs to using Liquefied Natural Gas.

Biogas has an important role to play too – we’re keen to maximise its value, upgrading biogas production to biomethane that can be exported to the grid, used as transport fuel or supplied to industry, which will help to reduce emissions in more challenging sectors of the economy.

We’re also going to deploy alternative fuels – we’ll switch 100 per cent of our gas oil demand to hydrotreated vegetable oils (HVOs) and develop a plan to maximise the opportunities and benefits for hydrogen across all our operations.

Our biggest challenge, in common with our fellow water companies, is process emissions. We’re installing monitoring equipment at four large Anglian Water sites to improve our understanding about the scale and location of process emissions. We’ll share the outputs so they can be reviewed alongside evidence from comparable studies in the UK and elsewhere when possible, with the aim of having a full plan in place to manage and reduce emissions by 2030.

Offsets are at the bottom of our pyramid; we’re committed to sourcing those we do need within our region wherever possible. We’re working with local partners to develop credible carbon offset schemes to deliver co-benefits of economic growth, improved catchment management and natural habitat creation. Our offsetting plans include planting 50 hectares of woodland on Anglian Water sites, exploring sequestration opportunities using wetlands, marshes and grasslands and working with landowners to develop land management schemes that avoid and remove emissions.

Our routemap is aligned to the latest science and is intended to achieve net zero by 2030, well ahead of the government’s 2050 target.  We’ve not yet sought endorsement from the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) but can confidently say our routemap goes further than many accredited companies.

For more info see our routemap.

To what extent should utilities look to offset emissions as opposed to focusing on achieving zero carbon?

We would support utilities following a strategy which, like ours, is built on a three-step hierarchy.  Our priority is to reduce our emissions.  The next step is to decarbonise our electricity supply, for example through the self-generation of even more renewable energy.

Finally, we’ll seek to remove or offset our residual emissions.  In our case, we’ll pursue carbon sequestration projects managed directly by us, within our boundary, or that we invest in. When working with third parties to offset our residual emissions, we’ll prioritise schemes in our region, supporting local businesses and our community. If we can’t offset locally we’ll seek to do so in the UK. International offset credit markets will be our last resort.

Customers and the community

What role do you think utilities have in helping to accelerate the climate plans of local authorities?

At Anglian Water and indeed right across the water sector, we can’t deliver our net zero ambitions in isolation. We also recognise the need for wider collaboration, not simply for reducing carbon emissions but to also ensure climate resilience. We’re actively sharing our plans for net zero with a range of organisations across our region and beyond, including our leading role in Business in the Community and CLG UK (the Corporate Leaders Group in the UK).

What role can utilities play in helping to engage customers on the path to net zero?

We’ve received really positive support from our customers for our ambitions to invest in the resilience of our infrastructure and taking action to significantly reduce our carbon footprint. Our customers tell us they want us to deliver resilience and climate action today, not kick the can down the road for future generations to tackle. That was the key message that came through from our engagement with over 500,000 customers on our 2020-2025 Business Plan.

In addition, our smart metering programme – with 1.1 million smart meters to be installed by 2025 – allows customers to monitor their own water consumption and make behavioural changes to reduce consumption and thus contribute to carbon reductions. So I actually see a very positive role for companies and customers working together to drive down carbon.

Policy & regulation

What is your principal ask of government and regulators to help your company contribute to the net-zero push?

Our primary ask is for certainty and clarity of government policy on carbon reduction targets and trajectories . Certainty will allow us – and all sectors of the economy – to better plan our strategies, approaches and investments so that we can deliver our shared zero carbon future as effectively and quickly as we can.

It’s also really important that the government doesn’t attempt to address zero carbon (climate change mitigation) in isolation from climate change adaptation. The issues are the two sides of the same coin and through approaches such as natural habitat creation and sustainable drainage, they can be delivered in parallel. These approaches also deliver other benefits around biodiversity, water quality and social value. We mustn’t miss the opportunities to maximise these co-benefits through the delivery of holistic climate solutions.

We’re working collaboratively with our regulators to deliver certainty and clarity as to targets, trajectories and ambitions across our value chain to enable us to reach our net zero and climate change adaptation ambitions. We’re having very positive conversations as we head towards PR24, and we’re looking forward to that continuing.

This interview is part of the Countdown to COP series. To read more click here.