Sustainability for Thames Water means that future generations should not be disadvantaged by the actions that our business decides to take today.
We are already practising this in a number of ways. For example, we check all our capital projects for impacts on wildlife and heritage, and set ambitious business-wide targets through our Climate Change and Carbon Management Strategy.
However, new challenges such as climate change mean we need to make a step change in what we do, adopting a much broader perspective across our whole business. This will almost certainly identify potential conflicts - for example, how we continue to improve effluent quality while minimising energy use.
We are already developing a company-wide sustainability strategy. This will bring together existing activity, identify additional issues to address and set clear targets across all business units.
We are already having to adapt to the effects of climate change, and will need to do more to protect public water supplies and the environment for the future.
For example, we will implement our Water Resources Management Plan to safeguard water supplies, with particular focus on leakage control, metering and water efficiency.
We will also enhance our sewerage design standard to increase capacity for projected additional flows, and review and improve the resilience of our sites to flooding.
It is also important that we take steps to reduce our own contribution to climate change.
We already generate over 14% of our energy needs from renewable sources, and have a target of 18% by 2010.
We will reduce emissions in accordance with government policy, and assume reductions of 20%, compared to 1990 levels, by 2015. We will also develop opportunities for increasing the amount of renewable energy we generate ? for example, from combined heat and power, and from wind power.
Another aspect of sustainability is the need to ensure that our equipment and processes are still in good working order in 25 years.
Our maintenance and investment decisions involve a risk-based approach that evaluates the likelihood and potential impacts of failures across the full range of our assets.
In the future, for instance, we intend to deliver maintenance programmes, reduce the rate of burst mains, renew pumps on our Ring Main shafts in London, and seek to develop new recycling opportunities and beneficial uses for sewage sludge.
