Natural resource protection and enhancement
Our management of the natural environment covers the land that we own, enhancing its biodiversity and our approach to improving surface and bathing water quality We aim to enhance and protect the quality of that natural environment, through sustainable catchment management , expanding the scope of our biodiversity approach, as well as through investing £725 million to deliver improved effluent quality, contributing to better quality water.
We are also helping our clients, outside of the North West, to do the same through their own investment programmes, helping them to manage their land, natural environment and wastewater treatment processes.
We are three years into our £10million, five-year plan called SCaMP (Sustainable Catchment Asset Management Programme) which aims to improve the condition of the land on our Peak District and Bowland estates, its wildlife habitats and the quality of the raw water that runs off it into our reservoirs. We are now at the stage of putting in place farm plans which will bring about environmentally and economically sustainable farming systems.
Nearly a third of the land we own is designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest. At present, 83 per cent of this is rated favourable or recovering and we aim to raise the figure to 95 per cent by 2010.
We have reviewed our biodiversity strategy and re-confirmed our commitment to enhancing and protecting biodiversity across the whole of our operations. In the year ahead, we will concentrate on demonstrating the business benefit of active biodiversity management.
Sustainable catchment management