Adaptation is about reducing the impact that changes in the climate will have on our business and the vital services we provide to our customers.
It involves changing our, business systems and processes to take account of future risks and opportunities. It also means looking at our own behaviour as consumers and the behaviours of our customers to encourage us all to think about what things we can do to minimise the impact of climate change.
In 2009 our Strategic Direction Statement sets out the risks and objectives for the whole business over the 25 years from 2010 to 2035 and climate change is identified as playing a key part.
In 2011 our Climate Change Adaptation Report was submitted to Defra as a requirement of the Climate Change Act 2008. This details our past adaptation work and our strategy for dealing with the current and future effects of climate change.
Actions to date have included reducing the vulnerability of key assets to potential changes in flood risk, increasing the resilience of water supplies and research work with various partners including the Met Office to understand how future changes in rainfall might affect the way we design our sewers.
Leading by example
As a founding member of the Prince of Wales' Corporate Leaders' Group (CLG) for Climate Change, we were at the launch of the CLG's Copenhagen Communique in July 2009. We were among one of the first businesses to endorse the Communique, which sets out the business case for an ambitious, robust and effective UN framework on climate change.
Our Managing Director, Peter Simpson, and other business leaders from major UK, EU and international companies in the CLG share a commitment to develop new and longer-term policies for tackling climate change.
Our climate change charter
We have written our climate change charter which has been signed by our Managing Director, Peter Simpson and Nick Herbert, the then Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. In the charter we promise to:
- become the most water-efficient region in the UK
- be innovative and develop more sustainable ways of working
- encourage employees and customers to take action on climate change
- embed climate change mitigation and adaptation into decision making processes