South West Water Ltd                            HRSC0017

Written evidence submitted by South West Water

Thank you for the opportunity to respond to the inquiry into heat resilience and sustainable cooling. We welcome this review as we believe that energy and water efficiency should go hand in hand – if houses are going to be more resilient to heat then they also need to be water efficient as well and we would welcome this being reflected in any new housing regulations.

Energy consumption is linked to water consumption – when people are hot in the summer they want to have access to cold water - and we need to be tying that messaging together. We are doing our bit to ensure there is enough water for everyone, especially in the peaks of summer when water demand spikes, and last year’s drought is the sign of the future we face and why we need to ensure our supplies are resilient to these rising temperatures.

Following on from the pandemic which saw significant increases in people in our region, 2022 saw the start of a severe drought that is still impacting on parts of the country today. This drought shows what could be commonplace in the future – as the likelihood of hotter summers, drier summers, and more heatwaves increase, impacting on the availability of water resources and our access to unlimited clean drinking water.

As our region is still officially in drought, we are already developing and delivering substantial investment in water resilience measures now that will deliver a fundamentally different supply position by 2025. This includes investment in new sources and desalination, alongside a step change in investment to tackle leakage and support to help customers to use less water. Our plan from 2025 is to build on this and ensure we fully break the drought cycle as the South West is particularly vulnerable to climate change, given its 860 miles of coastline and adjacency to the western approaches of the Atlantic Ocean, exposing the area to impacts from rising sea levels and storm intensity.

We know that the water industry is energy intensive and at South West Water we have ambitious plans to transform how we produce and use energy. Our journey to reduce our carbon emissions began more than 40 years ago with the use of anaerobic digestion in our wastewater treatment works, and our pledge now is to hit Net Zero operational carbon emissions by 2030.

A cornerstone of our journey to 2030 and beyond is how we maximise self-generation from renewables at our sites across the South West – working with partnerships and using our expertise we are aiming to achieve up to 50% self-generated energy by 2030. From April 2022 South West Water (excluding the acquired Bristol Water business) switched to 100% renewable sourced electricity as part of our new energy supply contract and we are always championing renewables.

You can find out more about our net zero plans here: www.southwestwater.co.uk/siteassets/document-repository/sustainability/ourpromisetotheplanet.pdf

In 2021 we also published our Climate Change Adaptation Report, which the Committee may find of interest. It can be found here: www.southwestwater.co.uk/siteassets/document-repository/environment/climate-change-adaption-2021.pdf

Finally, our Drainage and Wastewater Management Plan, published in May 2023 clearly states that climate change is one of the main drivers of risk and the work we are undertaking to adapt to these challenges. The document can be found here https://www.southwestwater.co.uk/siteassets/document-repository/business-plan-2020-2025/dwmp-our-plan.pdf

Once again, thank you for providing the invitation to contribute to the inquiry. We are committed to doing our bit to be adaptive and welcome this review. If you would like to discuss matters arising from this submission, please contact Carolyn Cadman, Director of Natural Resources.

August 2023