Waterwise upcoming conference in March 2012

Did you know that the UK has less rainfall per person than its northern European neighbours and that London is drier than Istanbul?[1] Water not only underpins the global economy but also provides sustenance for life itself. Yet, it is oft-forgotten during the course of everyday life. The anthropologist Daniel Miller argues that the more significant the material in question is, the more it is relegated to the context and becomes merely a part of the landscape. This perhaps holds true in the case of many things, most especially water. We are prone to actively think of water only once the well has run dry so to speak. Every person in the UK uses approximately 150 litres of water a day and this figure has been growing by 1% every year since 1930.[2] However, currently only 27% of lakes and rivers are fully functioning ecosystems, thanks to pollution and over-abstraction.[3] Some areas in England are already water stressed. In fact, the environment secretary Caroline Spelman called for an emergency drought summit on Feb 20^th as the south-east region was officially declared to be in drought[4]. This presents a challenge not only for sustaining present use but also because in the future, climate change and growing population are likely to exacerbate the situation. Over-abstraction compounds the problem because less water in the water bodies mean that the pollution will be more concentrated and it damages natural ecosystems and their ability to recover. Also, under EU law, there is legal imperative to demonstrate substantial improvements by 2027.[5] The UK privatised its water sector in 1989 and the industry has invested GBP 90 billion so far to reduce impact on nature and provide high quality affordable drinking water.[6] But going forward, a lot more needs to be done to protect local watersheds and treat water as a valuable resource that it is.

According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization roughly 70% - 90% of water withdrawal is usually consumed by agriculture in most countries. In that sense, the UK economy has an uncommon feature in that nearly 50% of water withdrawal is used for domestic consumption while 25% is used by businesses and agriculture and roughly 25% of the remaining water is lost to leakage.[7] According to the 2010 British Social Attitudes Survey, only 32% of people always/often choose to save/re-use water.[8] This highlights the need for          raising awareness and influencing behaviour towards more environment-friendly ones. Such a shift in mindset is possible given the right conditions. For example it has been demonstrated in the shift in public attitudes to recycling where in 2010, 86% of people admitted that they always/often made an effort to recycle whereas that number in 1993 was only 42%. Recycling probably became a mainstream practise in part largely due to the legislation which required all English local authorities to provide doorstep recycling collections. In the case of water supply in Britain, only 37% of households have a water meter and pay for what they use. The rest of the majority of the households in England and Wales are charged on the basis of the rateable value of their house rather than the quantity of water they consume.[9] Such a concept would be unthinkable in the case of any other commodity such as oil and natural gas for example, although they are not critical to survival. Given such a scenario, there is great potential not only for intelligent metering systems and water-efficient infrastructure to be adopted but also for a strategic shift to be made in the water sector.

However, there are several barriers that stand in the way of this shift such as a risk-averse culture and deep seated views on water management and a general predisposition towards projects that involve capital expenditure.[10] Most important among these is the need to engage British water users and make them think about how they use water and act on what they know. It is possible to change legislation without engaging end-users but it has great potential to backfire. Take for instance the case of the United States where the Federal Energy Policy Act of 1992 mandated that all faucet fixtures manufactured in the US should restrict maximum water flow at or below 2.5 gallons per minute (gpm) at 80 pounds per square inch (psi) of water pressure or 2.2 gpm at 60 psi. However since the spirit behind this legislation probably remained rather obscure, it led to the development of multi-head showers where each shower head complied with the letter of law but in total could easily emit as much 12 gpm, thus defeating the purpose of the law.[11]

  Source: Tucker (2006)

Waterwise is a UK based NGO that is at the forefront of water efficiency initiatives in the UK. But what differentiates the organization is that its offerings run the whole gamut from research and evaluation to policy advocacy, campaigns and communications to on-the-ground action. The organization works closely with various stakeholders ranging from local, regional and national governments, water companies and even end-users on a variety of initiatives in this regard. Founded in 2005, much of its work has to do with raising awareness and influencing behaviour, building and disseminating knowledge and challenging the status quo. Waterwise has been involved in some innovative projects such as SWAN (the Saving Water Advocacy Network) – a broad coalition of water companies, NGOs and government agencies that have joined up to raise the profile of water efficiency in the UK. Another milestone project has been the creation of an evidence base for large-scale water efficiency in homes. See this video for an example of its work done in collaboration with other organizations. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ufcBphUidPQ .

Waterwise also conducts an annual conference on water efficiency. This year’s conference will be held in Oxford on the 21^st and 22^nd of March, coinciding with the World Water Day. The theme of the conference this year is ‘Engaging water users’. The conference has a great line up of speakers and penetrating panel discussions.

Speakers and presenters:

Richard Benyon - Water Minister

Sir John Beddington - Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government

Alan Alexander - Chair, Waterwise

Marian Spain - Ofwat, Policy and Communications (TBC)

Pamela Taylor - CEO, Water UK 

Alison Maydom - Water Efficiency, Defra

Donna McKitterick - Head of Strategy and Development, Global Action Plan

Tony McHardy - Business Stream, General Manager, Sales and Marketing

Aaron Burton - Environment Agency Wales, Water Resources Advisor

Philip Sellwood - Energy Saving Trust, CEO

Nick Gant - Community 21, Founder

Karen Gibbs - Consumer Council for Water, Policy Manager

Ian Barker - Environment Agency, Head of Water

The conference promises to be exciting and informative. It also includes a water efficiency expo, where product manufacturers, water companies and other organisations developing and promoting water efficient products and services will gather. More information is available here. 

Mr. Jacob Tompkins, the Managing Director of Waterwise, who was invited to the emergency drought summit mentioned earlier, said that the situation in the UK looked fairly bad with very low groundwater in the South and East and very little prospect of substantial rain for the rest of the recharge period. The real worry was that if this were to continue into 2013, it could be the worst drought in the UK since 1976. The question looming large is whether this is merely a drought that will pass or a manifestation of the changing climate[12]. In either case, it has never been more critical to make every drop count.

Author: Kiran Pereira

Kiran Pereira would like to describe herself as a water warrior of sorts. She recently completed an MSc Environment and Development at King’s College, London. She has experience in capacity building, CSR, writing sustainability reports and the like. She worked for 10 years in the corporate sector before embarking on a master’s programme. She can be contacted on kiran.pereira@gmail.com. Personal blog: http://rhetoric2reality.wordpress.com/