The water efficiency skills gap must be bridged

The water efficiency skills gap in England must be bridged if retail competition is to lead to improvements in efficiency, says Aaron Burton.

Can retail competition lead to improvements in water efficiency and who will deliver this?

From April 2017, 1.3 million non-household water customers can choose their water and wastewater retailer. There have been 26 retail licences granted so far, however questions remain around whether they will have the skills and capacity to deliver the services to enable the water efficiency savings projected by the Cave Review and subsequent business cases. Many of those moving into the water sector come from wider sales or environmental backgrounds.

Water efficiency has been a key benefit of retail competition in Scotland, where businesses have been able to choose their retailer since 2008.

When CCWater surveyed businesses in England in 2014 the majority responded citing perceived benefits of competition including reduced consumption through pro-active advice on water usage, guidance on water efficiency and water recycling, and improved usage information from the provision of smart metering and monitoring services. For high spend/ high water users and multi-site companies they also highlighted the promise of heightened Corporate Social Responsibility through water efficiency and recycling measures and green tariffs.

At the Waterwise Retail Competition event held on 31 January, regulators and retailers discussed the skills and capacity gap in England in delivering water efficiency. In response, Waterwise are developing a non-household water efficiency training programme. This will be based on our existing training programme for household water efficiency awareness and home visit programmes. Many of the domestic uses and retrofit/behaviour change options are similar for businesses and households. The existing Waterwise training programme has been delivered to a range of water company staff and their suppliers across England and Scotland.

Our programme will launch in late March or early April 2017 and include two levels. Level 1 will provide the background to water efficiency, behaviours and retrofit options to support customer call centre staff, business developers and key account managers. Level 2 will build on the previous level but go into more detail about undertaking a water audit with a customer and the practicalities around retrofitting devices (for example tap aerators, dual flush toilets and urinal controls). We will develop further training courses at Level 3 based on specific industry sectors and processes (for example food and drink manufacturing).

By addressing the skills and capacity gap within the industry we hope to ensure water efficiency remains at the core of service innovation. We also expect customers to benefit more broadly from consistent messaging on water efficiency and benefits across water bills, energy bills and on carbon emissions.