‘Water and the Circular Economy’ Business Breakfast event co-hosted by The Future Economy Network and PWC.
On Tuesday 21st May 2019, The Future Economy Network held their ‘Water and the Circular Economy’ Business Breakfast. The event was hosted at PwC’s Glass Wharf offices; great for those commuting in by train and with wonderful views across Bristol.
Colin Bates, Private Business Expert and Partner at PwC welcomed attendees and stressed the importance of sustainability considerations within business. Director of The Future Economy Network, Katherine Piper then introduced The Future Economy Network’s remit, highlighting the benefits of subscribing to the Network, plans for their new carbon neutral sustainability hub, the activities and sponsorship opportunities at the Festival of Sustainable Business and the Future Economy Groups’ Recruitment offer.
The Future Economy Network then welcomed Paul Kelston from Bristol Water. Paul advised that the water efficiency conversation is changing in nature with a focus on how to engage with communities and customers. Bristol Water is part of the SUNEX (Sustainable Urban Food-Energy-Water Nexus) project which looks at the interconnectedness of food, energy and water, drawing on the experiences of four case studies; Vienna, Berlin, Doha and Bristol. The project will provide a modelling framework, assisting cities in the design and implementation of more sustainable resource management strategies. Bristol Water already has a goal to reduce household water consumption by 5% by 2025 and 10% by 2045, but the work with SUNEX is framing this work in the terms of waste and resources and looking from a wider perspective.
CEO at Halcyan Water, Samantha Mant was then welcomed to present. Samantha spoke about the unique properties of water. Given that it is one of our most carbon hungry materials, Samantha questioned why we are not discussing water efficiency more. Hot water production accounts for 4% of the UK’s carbon and this will increase as the number of households increase. What is more, it accounts for 14.5% of household energy use and yet the focus for reducing the carbon footprints of homes has historically been on insulating and ensuring air tightness. Samantha stressed the huge impact that limescaling can have on energy consumption with every millimetre of limescale on a heating element adding 7-10% on energy consumption. She concluded her presentation by referring to Halcyan’s water conditioner product which significantly reduces limescale, is chemical and salt-free, requires no maintenance and doesn’t require any power.
Last but not least, The Future Economy Network welcomed David George, Consulting Building Services Engineer at IWS Design Limited. Through the use of props (a hot water cylinder), David helped the audience visualise a householder’s water consumption before suggesting that the proposed 160 litres per day is an over-estimate. He suggested that the best way to reduce people’s water consumption is to increase the price of water, to accelerate Building Regulation’s ambition of stipulating a maximum of 80 litres and to address people’s behaviour. David spoke about the efficiency benefits of dual flushes, urinals and ensuring effective maintenance of flush valves.
Some excellent (and well-timed) 60-second pitches from representatives of Feed Video, Torsion Field, and Network subscribers Cadence Planning and Carbon Lens then preceded further networking over fruit and pastries, kindly provided by PWC.
The Future Economy Network would like to offer sincere thanks to all of our speakers and to PWC for co-hosting the event. Also, a huge thank you to all attendees – we hope you found it an interesting event and came away with some useful insights/collaborations.
