Net zero carbon

Our commitment to the planet

Climate change, caused by greenhouse gas emissions from human activity, is our biggest long-term challenge. We are committed to protecting our planet and we are making strides to limit our environmental impact while still providing the best service for our customers.

As part of this, we aim to achieve net zero operational carbon emissions by 2030 - along with other water companies in England. These are our annual emissions linked to our energy use and transport, plus other greenhouse gases that are emitted from sewage and sludge treatment processes.

We also aim to achieve net zero total carbon emissions by 2040. This includes our operational emissions outlined above, plus 'embodied carbon' emissions linked to construction materials, consumables such as treatment chemicals, and other parts of our supply chain.

Our routemap to net zero

In 2021, we published our routemap to net zero operational carbon, showing the actions we need to take for a more sustainable and low-carbon future. Our routemap highlights our approach over the next few years to achieve net zero operational carbon by 2030. This will involve a combination of both readily-available and innovative technologies and ways of working.

Some of the next steps that involve established technologies and methods will include:

• emissions avoidance measures, such as reducing water use and leakage; increasing the use of lower carbon transport; and promoting nature-based solutions that avoid energy use
• optimisation measures, such as energy efficiency work and systems for monitoring and controlling nitrous oxide from sewage treatment
• renewable energy – increasing the amount of biogas that we generate from anaerobic digestion and pursuing opportunities for wind and solar power, either as generators or as the end-user.

Read our Net Zero Report

How we plan to achieve total net zero carbon by 2040

To achieve our net zero total carbon target by 2040, we plan to develop a whole-life total carbon approach, connecting both operational and embodied carbon emissions. This must be central to our decision-making processes to enable our transition into a truly low carbon business. Looking ahead, it will necessarily mean challenging assumptions about the best ways to carry out investment for our customers, communities, and the water environment.

If we are unable to achieve net zero through changes across the business and low carbon improvements across the energy and transport sector, we would look to offsetting as a last resort e.g. projects elsewhere that provide carbon savings to compensate for the remaining carbon emissions from the business.

Adapting to climate change

The world's climate has already warmed by 1.1 degrees centigrade since the start of the 20th century. Worldwide we are seeing the effects of this in terms of extreme weather events including heatwaves, droughts, intense storm events and prolonged rainfall.

While events such as these have happened in the past, climate change is a ‘threat multiplier’ that increases risks. This means that extreme weather events that are considered possible but unusual by today’s standards will occur more frequently and to a greater intensity in the future.

For our part, we have developed a climate change adaptation plan which outlines the main climate-related risks that we face and the work that we are carrying out that will help us adapt to them. Details are provided in our latest climate change adaptation report.

Adaptation includes:

• reducing leakage across our network to help ensure a sustainable water supply to meet future demand
• establishing the West Country Water Resources Group with neighbouring water companies to manage future supply and ensure resilience
• reducing the infiltration of groundwater into sewers and working with local councils on surface water management
• raising electrical equipment positions at low-lying sites to ensure we can continue delivering our services when flooding occurs, and linking up with other agencies that are affected by extreme weather events.

We are experienced at coping with acute weather-related impacts and we build them into our planning activities and risk assessments. This will help to continue providing excellent services, even as extreme weather events occur more frequently as the impacts of climate change intensify.