Alison Ireland reports back on British Water’s annual International Reception and Conference for Waterbriefing.

Alison Ireland: It was quite some pre-Christmas summit, Tomorrow’s Water, British Water’s annual International Reception and Conference, under the new and dynamic leadership of Lila Thompson. 

Not only were many of the big cheeses of the water industry saying ‘don’t mind if I do!’ to smiling canapé waiters at the Thursday night reception at the amazing venue of the Institute of Civil Engineers in Westminster, but the main course at Friday’s conference at Bank Street, Canary Wharf, where attendees at 12 roundtable discussions sank their collective teeth into vital industry issues, was a fascinating ‘liquid’ diet for all water-and-wastewater-related tastes.

And at the heart of the conference was a global retinue of representatives from SABESP and Iguá (Brazil), Rean (India) and Department for International Trade commercial officers from China and Iraq, as well as UK-based international stakeholders.

On the conference menu were the big-picture themes of resilience, the circular economy and global responsibility, including a panel discussion on how the world is ‘getting ready for tomorrow’s water’. 

Marie Whaley from Affinity curbed the discussion at the point it became too UK-congratulatory, pointing out that people had been trying to get British water companies to engage internationally for over 20 years and that it's an uphill battle. 

Obviously, the potential nationalisation of water, depending on the outcome of the election, was a hot topic, with the greatest potential obstacle being the challenge of buying back all the assets and infrastructure from foreign owners.

But only when the real nitty-gritty was got down to, at the roundtable talks, did this conference turn from the pretty interesting to the unmissable.  

Spoilt for choice among a range of subjects including ‘Networks & Leakage’,’ Climate Adaptation & Catchment Management’, and ‘How to let Data do the Work’, I found myself zooming in on the table topics of ‘The Quest for an Effective Water Cycle’, ‘Micro-pollutants & Micro-plastics in our Waterways’, and ‘Carbon - Net Zero & Zero Plus’. 

The genuine tipping point in terms of what we need to do environmentally and urgently was for the first time, top of everyone’s mind. On the back of the UK release of Australian utopia/dystopia film, 2040, the issues were timely and real rather than buzzwords – responsibility as a concept is finally starting to take centre-stage, as always pushed there by money. 

The buzzing ‘Think & Do Tanks’, spread across 12 tables, were a hive of conversational activity. They included a roundtable talk ‘Networks & Leakage – Action Plan’, chaired by Phil Tomlinson, Commercial Director at Metasphere, and a discussion on Climate Adaptation & Catchment Management, run by Martin Shouler of Arup. 

At another table the statement ‘Let Data Do The Work’ was challenged in a chat led by Jamie Mills, a Systems Engineer at Xylem, while Beverley Ferrara, European Representative of The Water Council, USA, hosted a roundtable entitled Collaboration in the Face of Competition.

And at a Think & Do Tank jointly chaired by Steve Webber of WRc and Trevor Bishop of Water Resources South East, the hot topic of Regulation & Technology Adoption was tackled. 

Networking conversation was dominated by the same topics as the conference discussion: agricultural and industrial groundwater pollutants; responsibility; nationalisation; solving climate change – incentivising farmers financially to use different pesticides, dumping problem-causing waste such as wet wipes back at the factories which made them, and how to hit latest Ofwat targets.

British Water provided a significant event in getting participants in the struggle to solve our water and environment crisis on the same page, and keeping them reading – and doing.