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 greenhouse gas emissions
Our net zero commitment covers emissions from our regulated activities: water treatment and distribution, sewerage, sewage treatment, and sludge treatment. The emissions we report are divided into three ‘scopes’, as per greenhouse gas reporting standards:
- emissions from our sites and assets e.g. fuels burnt on site, our vehicle fleet
- emissions from the generation of grid electricity that we use
- other indirect emissions that occur in the company's value chain, including outsourced activities.
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.
How innovation is playing its part in out net zero routemap
Through technological improvements and innovation, we have already seen reductions in the cost of renewable energy generation and energy storage.
We are also increasingly seeing the potential for digitalisation and data-led innovations, which offer a lot of promise for operating water mains, sewers, and water and sewage treatment in the most efficient way possible.
We look forward to working with other businesses and the research community to put new low-carbon technologies into practice.
Find out more about our approach to innovation for net zero as well as our other innovative work.
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
We are seeing the effects of climate change through extreme weather events, including heatwaves, droughts, intense storms and prolonged rainfall.
To help tackle these issues, we have developed a climate change adaptation plan which outlines the main climate-related risks that we face and how we are adapting to them.
Find out more about how we’re adapting to climate change.
Document download
For all our other environmental information, please visit our document library.
Wessex Water Climate Change Adaptation Report
wessex-water-climate-change-adaptation-report.pdf - (2.21mb)Wessex Water Net Zero Report
wessex-water-net-zero-report-2024.pdf - (3.07mb)