Sustainability strategies driving growth in self-supply

Growing corporate interest in sustainability including water efficiency is driving more companies towards a self-supply licence for their water needs.

Neil Pendle, managing director of self-supply managers Waterscan, told Utility Week he expects three licences to be granted in the coming months and further customers to come on board next year.

He said interest is generally not due to cost saving but driven by water efficiency.

“Everything is geared towards water efficiency,” Pendle said. “It turns the retail model on its head. Customers want to have good understanding about what they will be using and systems to show where water efficiency can be implemented.”

He said there has been an uptick in interest in self-supply from customers with sustainability agendas, net-zero strategies and for whom water is an integral part of the business.

“They have strategies for the impacts of climate change over the next few years and self-supply fits into that model because it’s easy to see how we can operate within those objectives for their customer, not just operating to get a water bill out.”

There are currently 14 self-supply licences granted, most recently for Sainsbury’s, which received its licence in July.

Pendle said the awareness that this is not only for the hospitality sector is growing to other water intensive sectors.

There have been recent calls to improve water efficiency in the non-household market including a proposal to broaden how water usage is measured to include consumption in the retail sector as well as domestic per capita consumption (PCC). This week Defra announced there is scope to include this in the upcoming Environment Bill.

Pendle argued that greater collaboration within the non-household sector could address the sustainability issues and said the regulator has paved the way for this.

“The water industry needs fresh thinking and I think Ofwat are providing it. They have provided leadership as a regulator, a clear steer, and opportunities to work together. If people don’t take that up it’s not Ofwat’s fault.”

Encouragement to collaborate includes the £200 million innovation fund from Ofwat. Pendle said Waterscan is seeking wholesaler support for its entries for a water efficiency programme and a catchment management project.

“We can offer a different perspective on these. There is a way of delivering for customers in a different way than has been done up until now and we would like to work with wholesalers to deliver this.”

Pendle said he hopes the fund, which Ofwat unveiled details of this week, will focus on data projects rather than pieces of kit. “There are massive opportunities that have been missed over time, but if the fund can deliver it will have great outcomes for customers and the sector.”