Breaking Waves

We’re delighted to have won the Water Industry Awards Retailer of the Year Award for the second time in three years.

Our entry covered four key areas: customer service, positive environmental impact, innovation, and people. The judges were particularly impressed by “the focus on colleagues’ welfare, as well as clear and demonstrable efforts to innovate and improve customer service.”

Some of our key achievements supporting the award win included:

• Reduced wait times for calls and email responses
• An Excellent rating on Trustpilot
• Running corporate volunteering days across the country
• Our partnership with SaveMoneyCutCarbon
• Issuing High Consumption Alerts to large customers
• Running voluntary financial education webinars for our people during the cost-of-living crisis

Our win in this category speaks to our passion and drive to make a positive difference to our customers, our people and the environment and community. You can read more about the award on our website.

As a water retailer, we see every day how important it is for businesses and communities to save water and use what we have more efficiently. We’re committed to a more sustainable tomorrow, and we’ve made a social and sustainability promise to make a positive difference to four key areas; the planet, people, company and customers and communities.

Throughout the last financial year, we’ve been measuring and recording all the good that we’ve been doing as a business. We’ve now launched our first annual Social and Sustainability Report, where you can see how we’ve achieved our goals and supported customers in saving 2.9 billion litres of water, offset 200 tonnes of carbon and much more.

Read our report

Last year we saw record-breaking temperatures and we’re seeing more hot spells this summer, meaning droughts are already happening in parts of the UK.

As temperatures rise, the amount of water used drastically increases, particularly at peak times of the day. This puts a lot of pressure on water companies to supply enough water to meet demand. Wholesalers are working hard to meet demand with some areas seeing the introduction of Temporary Use Bans and in extreme cases planning for Non-Essential Use Bans.

What can you do to help?

We can all play our part in using less water and doing what you can to reduce your water waste now will help prevent further water restrictions being put in place.

We’ve lots of help and advice on our website including a guide on how to help ensure business as usual in a heatwave, our FAQ to keep you up to date on Temporary Use Bans and downloadable posters to share across your organisation.

On Wednesday 28 June, Wave held a social and sustainability day in Manchester, alongside the Canal and River Trust.

As part of our employee benefits, I was able to use my volunteering day and take part in the activities. It was great to be able to meet face-to-face with customers from Manchester City Council, Lancashire City Council, Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council and Stockport Council.

Working together

We got together at a nearby Starbucks for some introductions and an opening talk from our Director of Public Sector and Industrial Customers, Tony March. This was followed by Chris Bird, Volunteer Team Leader at Canal and River Trust, who let us know what we’d be doing for the day and some health and safety advice before we headed to the Rochdale Canal.

The team split into three smaller groups, each given a task. The tasks included litter picking, painting and maintenance work on planters which needed fixing to the safety railings and some new plants. These were by no means easy tasks, especially painting in the rain!

Although we could only cover a small area of the canal, it was really rewarding to see the difference that we made in just one day. Our customers enjoyed the opportunity too, as Lancashire County Council said: “the day was well organised, great to meet people from other public sector organisations and make a difference.”

Join our next event

To get involved in one of our upcoming events, please contact your account manager, here’s where we’re heading next:

• 4th October – Grounds maintenance and habitat improvements at Middlesex Filter Beds, London in partnership with Lee Valley Trust
• 16th November - Tree planting at Stamfordham Village, Northumberland in partnership with Northumberland County Council

Martin, Wave’s Data Integrity Manager, set himself a task to walk a million steps in June for The Menopause Charity, which works to help people understand the mental and physical changes that occur during perimenopause and menopause.

Within the first 12 days, Martin had taken 399,012 steps, which included taking part in the Coastal Challenge Walk, a 26-mile trek from Budle to Alnmouth across variable terrain. By day 15, halfway through June, Martin had totalled 520,000 steps which was ahead of his target.

Martin was spurred on by other Wave employees who joined him for one of his walks on the last weekend of his challenge, as well as lots of support for his Instagram page, where he shared photos and videos of his routes.

On the 27th June, 3 days ahead of schedule, Martin completed his challenge with a total of 1,000,452 steps, covering an enormous 525 miles and raising over £850 for The Menopause Charity.

In July we attended the four-day NWG Innovation Festival at Newcastle Racecourse, where we sponsored a sprint for the first time.

The sprint - Dewatering the economy: How can we accommodate growth and reduce business water demand?

Our sprint, overseen by our Head of Operations, Oli Shelley, focused on the non-household water market and DEFRA’s 9% reduction target for businesses where we looked to answer:

• What innovative solutions could be developed to support businesses in reducing their water consumption?
• What tools could be created to help relevant industry segments establish a clear investment case for the change?

We were joined by speakers from organisations such as Waterwise, MOSL and MEUC who discussed the need to save water and the importance of water efficiency, which helped us define the problem for the sprint.

By the end of the third day, we had three working solutions for problems that focused on shared accountability, customer awareness around private pipework, and effective business water management plans.

The final day was spent challenging and stress testing the ideas and exploring and refining our core potential solutions. Ultimately, we decided customer awareness around private pipework was an impactful solution that would be most beneficial to business customers, so this is the one we chose to take forward.

It was a fantastic week, full of valuable insights, important conversations, and of course, lots of laughter! You can read about the week in more detail on our blog.