Environment

Our business is intrinsically linked to the environment as we rely on it for our raw product, water. For this reason we do all we can to ensure there is a clean, resilient and sustainable supply available for current and future water customers whilst ensuring there is enough water available to support the needs of the environment too. Click 'Discover More' to find out more from our Head of Environment, Emma Goddard.

People

Our people are dedicated to providing you with the best service possible, whether they’re out in the field searching for leaks, managing our operational sites, testing the quality of your water or answering your queries. Each and every person within the business is dedicated to delivering you the safe reliable tap water supply you expect. Click 'Discover more' to find out more from our Head of HR, Sian Jenkins.

Last updated 11-07-23

Our responsible business commitment is to introduce natural capital accounting.

We plan to adopt a natural capital approach to ensure we value our impacts and dependencies on nature in the decisions we make. Natural capital accounting is a tool that can help measure the full extent of natural assets, such as water, air and woodland or other natural habitats. Giving us perspective on the link between the economy, ecology and our environment. This will help ensure the decisions we make are right for the long term sustainability of our region.

Desired impact – For South East Water to ensure our impact and dependencies on nature is valued in all decisions we make.

How have we performed?

Using a set of natural capital metrics, we have created a natural capital account for our Barcombe system which includes two connected reservoirs at Barcombe and Ardingly. This system supplies our largest water treatment work whilst also contributing to regulate the river flow.

Using the same metrics, we have also carried out a natural capital assessment of our future Broad Oak reservoir.  This has helped us quantify the net impact of these two assets on our natural stock / capital for example how they contribute to biodiversity or climate regulation.  When undertaking the assessment of future projects, we also expanded the scope to include impact to social, human, intellectual, manufactured and financial capitals.

We have also carried a baseline natural capital and biodiversity assessment of all our 302 sites that assesses how our sites contribute to water quality regulation, air quality regulation, biodiversity, pollination, flood regulation and climate regulation. We have also assessed their contribution to social benefits such as visual amenity and recreation. The baseline ensures we can evaluate and protect our natural assets when considering future impact, and will allow us to quantify whether and how we can improve their overall benefit for the natural environment, for example by increasing the biodiversity on these sites.

This is only the start, and we are working with our consultants and with our environmental, asset management and engineering functions to embed this approach into the design and selection of our future investment. This will help us select the most beneficial solutions for the environment and our communities by looking at a much wider range of factors.

An important aspect of our 25-year environment plan is to deliver nature-based catchment management solutions. Natural accounting will be a very useful tool we can use to demonstrate the benefits of the nature-based solutions we proposed compared with other solutions such as engineering schemes.

Read more about our 25-year environment plan here.

Case Studies

Fleet

Innovative pipelaying keep golfers on par

River

Sniffing for newts in Farnham

Sniffing for newts in Farnham

Forest

Farm events to inspire behaviour change

Our team of Catchment Advisors work hard all year-round to understand, and mitigate, any risks posed to the health of our water sources. A large part of this work involves partnering with hundreds of farmers and land managers in priority catchment areas.

Cockhaise Farm

Grant-funded investments to reduce pressure of drought

Grant-funded investments to reduce pressure of drought

Fruit sprayer

Pesticide handling installation protects local rivers

Pesticide handling installation protects local rivers