South West Water director appointed to research group board

An environmental research joint initiative between South West Water and the University of Exeter, has appointed the water company’s director of natural resources, Carolyn Cadman, to its board.

The initiative, the Centre for Resilience in Environment, Water and Waste (CREWW), is scheduled to open officially in March next year and will undertake research into “some of the most pressing environmental challenges of our time.”

Cadman (pictrured) currently oversees two projects being researched at South West Water through the CREWW partnership: Upstream Thinking and the Catchment Systems Thinking Cooperative (CaSTCo).

Upstream Thinking is a catchment management programme delivered in partnership with Westcountry Rivers Trust, the Wildlife Trusts in Devon and Cornwall, the Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group and South West Lakes Trust. It involves working with landowners to look at how land is managed to drive improvements in raw water quality in rivers across the region.

CaSTCo is part of a partnership led by United Utilities and the Rivers Trust with twelve water and sewerage companies as well as academia and environmental charities. It was awarded £7.1m by Ofwat It seeks to ensure there is “a robust evidence base for tackling environmental challenges with direct support for local evidence gathering and community engagement in eight demonstration catchments, and a national framework of standardised tools and training.”

Pennon Group chief, Susan Davy, said: “By bringing together South West Water colleagues and academics under one roof we can continue to tackle some of the key environmental challenges we face as a region and as an industry.

• The CREWW boardroom has been named in memory of former South West Water Managing Director, Dr Stephen Bird. Dr Bird was the Managing Director at South West Water between 2016 and 2019 and played an integral role in developing the vision and design for CREWW. Chief executive officer at Pennon Group, Susan Davy, said: “The CREWW initiative demonstrates the passion Stephen had for investing in education and reinforcing how collaborative thinking can bring about great change. We are proud to be able to honour his memory with the naming of the new boardroom.”