Utilities have realised that what was applicable a few decades ago is not relevant to the current situation, as various factors control the operation. It is highly critical for utilities to deliver high-quality water, with no supply interruption while protecting the health and wellness of its customers. Utilities have to work on making informed decisions with a sense of urgency. They face major threats because of climate change, water scarcity, growing global population, availability of fresh water reserves, uncertain economic situations, and so on which need to be addressed for them to perform their functions effectively. Utilities are investing towards making their operations of water supply and wastewater treatment resilient to mitigate the adversities posed by climate change and cope with the increase in population and so on. These challenges will also threaten delivering safe, reliable water along with efficient and affordable services. Utilities are fully aware of these challenges and have invested in sustainability to deliver good-quality water and sanitation.
Research Scope
This study provides an outlook of the sustainability of UK’s water utilities. It covers some of the key sustainability indicators and performance of water utilities with respect to these indicators and solutions to address the issues faced by utilities with case studies. The key themes that have been broadly classified under the following:
- Protect and promote public health
- Provide high-quality, reliable and value-for-money service
- Response to climate change
- Reducing environmental impacts.
The study also encompasses an executive summary indicating the average performance of water utilities in terms of sustainability. It also covers top sustainability trends of UK utilities, followed by top predictions for the year 2018.
Research Highlights
The study also elaborates on some of the critical future challenges that will be faced by utilities. Some of these challenges include climate change and adverse weather events, increase in population, micropollutants, availability of water treatment chemicals due to depleting resources, and water security. The most important challenge faced by most utilities in the world is climate change. Its implications-drought, flooding, depletion of water quality, and rise of sea level-have been elaborated in the study.
The research not only has information on the performance of water utilities for the last three years but also has case studies and technologies that can be used to improve the performance of these sustainability indicators. For instance, the study provides information on mitigating sewer flooding by providing information on the solutions available, prospects of combined sewer overflow to mitigate flooding, and case studies on green roof management.
The research service covers the Mega Trends that impact the sustainability of UK water utilities. These include innovation to zero, climate change, and smart is the new green. Key growth opportunities include disruptive applications such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and virtual reality. There are many AI and machine learning platforms in the world working across many industries with information on companies that are using AI to address pipe leakage. The study covers examples of water utilities across the world that use virtual reality to perform operation and maintenance of treatment plants.
The study provides a comparison of water utilities with respect to key sustainability indicators. The exhibits also demonstrate how the utilities have performed in the current year (2016–2017) compared to the previous year (2015–2016).
Key Issues Addressed
- What are the top trends in 2018 influencing the sustainability of UK water utilities?
- What is the performance of water utilities with respect to drinking water quality?
- What is the performance of water utilities with respect to water supply interruptions?
- What are the key growth opportunities for the market participants?
- What is the quantity of greenhouse gas emitted by utilities in the last three years?
Conclusion
This study will provide an in-depth analysis on key sustainability metrics of UK’s water and wastewater utilities. It will also talk about interesting trends, especially “smart”, that are driving the market. This will aid clients in identifying the right technology or solution to invest in, in order to improve the performance of the sustainability indicators listed in the study. The client can also understand the performance of other utilities in the UK for them to pick up best practices and examples
