We have set up a team which includes people from our company, the Environment Agency and our capital programme design partners, MWH, to consider what utility provision might look like by the year 2050.
The team looked at two communities to analyse their current and likely future carbon footprint. Two scenarios were considered; one where the local utility company continues to provide services to customers in the way we do at present and the other where the utility company works closely with the community to provide services and sustainable technologies to minimise its carbon footprint.
This second approach showed that a reduction of around 10 per cent in the utility company’s footprint could be achieved through taking a collaborative approach and a further reduction of another 10 per cent could be achieved by customers’ actions. This translated to a reduction from an average carbon footprint of six tonnes per person a year down to four tonnes per person per year. If this was repeated nationally it could provide a huge reduction in the country’s carbon footprint and at the same time significantly contribute to achieving sustainability goals.
