Retail Wholesaler Group delivers plan to boost business water efficiency

The Water Efficiency Subgroup of the Retailer Wholesaler Group (RWG) has developed an action plan to deliver greater water efficiency in the business sector. Last week the group sent this plan to Ofwat and the Environment Agency (EA), following their joint letter of March 2020 demanding wholesalers and retailers take action.

The plan comprises five headline actions with a series of associated sub actions. The headline actions are:

• develop a shared view with policy makers and regulators of the scale of short term and longer term non household (NHH) water efficiency ambition;

• improve understanding of the nature of non household water consumption through smarter use and better sharing of data;

• improve engagement of retailers in the water resource planning process (Regional and WRMP24);

• drawing on customer insight, identify and address wider regulatory and other relevant barriers to non household water efficiency, including reviewing tariffs, targets, incentives and penalties; and

• collaborate to raise the profile of water efficiency with businesses and their customers.

A new steering group has been set up as part of the work to date (the RWG Water Efficiency Steering Group) to provide representation from trading parties at a senior level. This group has formally signed off the headline action plan, and is now in the process of setting up task and finish groups to begin delivering the actions.

Delivery will be led by the RWG with progress reported to Ofwat and the EA and to the new Senior Water Demand Steering Group (SWDSG) Defra plans to set up.

The RWG WESG intends to highlight actions that cannot be delivered without funding, with a view to exploring what industry funding options may be available, such as the Market Improvement Fund, and where necessary for further consideration and discussion with Ofwat, EA and SWDSG.