Anglian expands innovation Shop Window and brings future leaders on board

Anglian Water is to expand its Newmarket-based Shop Window – used to trial, develop and showcase new technologies and innovations – to Cambridge and coastal areas of West Norfolk, including many surrounding towns and villages. And it has revamped Shop Window governance to bring future leaders into decision making processes.

Anglian said the expansion will enable it to trial new things on a larger cross section of its customer base and to access a broader range of infrastructure. The programme will look to accelerate new projects in:

• ensuring resilient and intelligent water supply;

• supporting a flourishing environment;

• Supporting a flourishing environment;

• tackling climate change;

• unlocking efficiency; and

• enabling the workforce of the future.

The project has also altered its decision-making structure to include members of its Future Leaders Board alongside existing company directors, on the newly formed Shop Window Management board. Fionn Boyle, chair of the Shop Window Management Board, explained: “So much of the Shop Window programme [is] about the future, our board felt it right that its management should fall to the future leaders of our business, supported by the current senior management team. Jointly they will have responsibility for all assets, operations and investment in the area. They will actively look to develop a future operating state to enable us to continually move forward at pace, rolling out successes across the whole business.”

Founded in 2015, the Show Window initiative originally aimed to create a vision of the water company of the future. Past projects such as smart metering, mobile sludge thickening technology and an entire smart water systems strategy have already been rolled out across Anglian’s whole region after being originally developed in the Shop Window area.