Improving resilience to
weather and climate
change for our customers
The importance of adaptation
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Introduction from
Martin Baggs
Chief Executive Officer
We provide essential water and sewerage services to our
customers and we aim to do it in the most sustainable way.
To do this, we rely on goods and services provided by our
contractors and suppliers.
Our supply chain is almost certain to be affected by current
weather events and climate change in the UK and beyond. In
order to have confidence that we can deliver the essential service
to our customers, we need confidence that all our partners are
sufficiently resilient to the current weather and the impacts of
climate change.
We want to work together with our supply chain to help you:
• Understand the potential impacts of weather and climate
change on your business resilience and put in place plans to
respond
• Understand your carbon footprint and put in place plans to
reduce the carbon intensity of the goods and services you provide
We have produced this booklet to help explain what the issues are
and what they mean to Thames Water. It also explains how you can
improve your own resilience and the benefits this would bring to
your business. The booklet also poses some questions you may
want to consider to assess risks and opportunities.
Martin Baggs
Chief Executive Officer, Thames Water
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Key contacts
Sustainability
Dr Keith Colquhoun Climate Change and
Sustainability Strategy Manager
[email protected]
Procurement Team
Gareth Cale Procurement Support Manager
[email protected]
Sustainability Team
Pavan Badesha Sustainability Awareness Advisor
[email protected]
What is climate change?
Climate change means long term change in weather conditions.
The Earth’s climate has changed naturally in the past but most
scientists now think that humans are also having an effect.
Activities such as burning fossil fuels and deforestation release
carbon dioxide (CO2). CO2 (and some other gases) forms a layer
in the atmosphere that traps energy. This causes the Earth to
warm up, leading to long term changes in weather conditions.
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Why is Thames Water
concerned?
What do we mean by
resilience and adaptation?
We are concerned about the impact of weather
and climate change on the essential service we
provide.
We believe that a twin track approach of
managing the unavoidable impacts of climate
change on our business (‘adaptation’),
combined with reducing our greenhouse gas
emissions (‘mitigation’), is essential if we are
to overcome the challenges climate change
represents.
The impacts of climate change may seem a
long way off but the impacts of severe weather
are being seen on an almost daily basis. For
example, over the past few years we have seen
extreme weather events including the 2012
drought, extreme cold and snow in 2010/11
and the wettest summer for 100 years in 2012.
Further afield we have seen extreme weather
events such as Hurricane Irene 2011 and floods
in Thailand 2011. All of these events either
impacted or had the potential to impact on
companies and supply chains.
We rely on goods and services provided by our
suppliers. Our supply chain will be affected
by weather events and climate change in the
UK and beyond. In order to have confidence
that we can deliver to our customers, we need
confidence that our suppliers are resilient to
weather today and climate change in the
longer-term.
The latest projections of how the UK climate might
change over the next century are called
United Kingdom Climate
Projections 2009 (UKCP09).
UKCP09 contains projections of average temperature
and rainfall (annual and seasonal) as well as extremes
and changes in sea level.
Adaptation means taking action to manage
weather and climate change risks and make the
most of the opportunities.
Adaptation is linked to resilience. Resilience
is about managing risks and being able to
withstand or recover from ‘shocks’. Business
resilience is about being able to respond or
recover while continuing to operate with limited
impact on the business.
Current weather and climate change are
pressures businesses increasingly need to be
resilient to. Adaptation to weather and climate
change risks are likely to increase business
resilience.
The essential service we provide is sensitive to
weather and climate change – therefore we
need to find ways to improve resilience.
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What is Thames Water doing
to improve resilience to
weather and climate change?
We have assessed the level of risk we face from
weather and climate change. We are exposed
to:
1. Increasing pressure on water resources (not
just because of climate change but climate
change will make it worse)
2. Increasing pressure on the sewerage
network from increases in rainfall at certain
times of the year and more intense rain
storms
3. Flooding of water and wastewater
treatment sites
We have already taken action to improve
resilience to these risks. We use climate
projections to develop our Water Resource
Management Plan which explains how we
will make sure there is enough water for our
customers over the next 25 years.
We have improved the design standard for
sewers and are developing new ways to increase
their capacity to cope with heavier storms.
We have assessed the risk of flooding for nearly
7,000 assets and have or are planning to take
actions to improve flood resilience at our most
vulnerable sites.
Our adaptation efforts have focused on
managing direct risks to our operations and
we will continue to regularly reassess these
risks. However, we are exposed to indirect risks
through our supply chains and we want to
manage these risks as well.
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Why do we want you to
consider resilience and
adaptation?
What are the benefits of
considering resilience and
adaptation?
In order to have confidence that we can deliver
to our customers, we need confidence that our
suppliers are resilient to weather and climate
change risks.
We believe that improved resilience will benefit
not only us but all of our suppliers.
Our UK based suppliers will almost certainly
be affected by weather and climate change.
However, our suppliers are dependent on
suppliers in other countries where the timing
and severity of weather events and climate
change may be different. There is potential for
weather events and climate change to disrupt
the ability of our suppliers to deliver contracted
goods and services.
Probably the greatest benefit of considering
adaptation is a better understanding of your
potential business risks.
As well as managing risks, we want to become
water sector leaders on sustainability.
Increasing resilience to weather and climate
change is an essential part of this.
We want to work with you to understand the
weather and climate risks we (and you) are
exposed to and take action to reduce them.
Risk management
By thinking about exposure to risk and
adaptation in your own supply chains, you will
gain a greater confidence in your suppliers’
ability to fulfil their obligations to you. In turn,
you will have greater confidence in your ability
to deliver goods and services to us. By providing
this confidence you are likely to benefit from a
competitive advantage.
Cost saving
Adaptation can result in cost savings in the
short and long term, like lower insurance costs
and avoiding damage in future which may also
lead to loss of business. Taking action now to
reduce climate change risks will improve your
resilience to current weather events.
Sustainability
Improving your resilience to weather and
climate change could also help you become
more sustainable, improve your customer
reputation and confidence.
The global automotive industry was affected
by flooding in Thailand in 2011. Thai factories
supply factories around the world with
components. Disruption to the supply chain led
to a reduction in output around the globe. In
North America, Toyota cut output because they
ran out of key Thai-made components.
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Key questions for our suppliers What can you do to consider
to consider
adaptation and improve
1. How are the various aspects of your business resilience?
(property, equipment, processes, materials,
markets, suppliers) affected by current
weather events?
2. How might the risks to your business change
as a result of climate change?
3. How might your suppliers be affected by the
impacts of climate change? What impact
could this have on your business?
4. How could climate change impact your
ability to deliver goods and services and
meet contractual obligations?
5. What action do you need to take to reduce
weather and climate change risks and
improve the resilience of your business?
6. How are you planning to implement and
measure the outcome of these actions?
A basic approach for understanding and
responding to weather and climate change risks
is as follows:
1. Identify how your business is currently
affected by weather. Think about how this
affects your processes, property, equipment,
materials, suppliers and reputation.
2. Identify how your business might be
affected by climate change. You can use
headline messages from UKCP09 (climate
change predictions) to understand how the
UK climate might change.
3. Assess the scale of the risks and
opportunities and prioritise where you need
to take action.
4. Identify adaptation actions. Start with
current processes: are you already doing
things which will have resilience benefits?
Can you do things differently?
5. Set out what you plan to do in an
adaptation plan.
6. Monitor and review your adaptation actions
and report progress.
7. Assess the scale of weather and climate
change risks
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Where can you get further
information and help?
A lot of basic information, advice and case studies are available
for free online. Organisations wishing to undertake a detailed
assessment of their climate risks, including modelling and costing
impacts and adaptation responses, may want to pay for more
technical analyses and advice.
Some links are provided below but for more sources of
information see the full document which accompanies this
leaflet.
Climate Ready from the Environment Agency
www.environment-agency.gov.uk/research/137557.aspx
Climate UK
www.climateuk.net
London Climate Change Partnership
www.london.gov.uk/lccp
South East Climate Change Partnership
www.climatesoutheast.org.uk
UKCIP
www.ukcip.org.uk
UKCP09
ukclimateprojections.defra.gov.uk/
Mayday Network
www.maydaynetwork.com/