International comparisons - water efficiency

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Introduction	Customers' bills	Unit costs	Customer service levels	Water quality
Environmental performance	Water balance	Water efficiency	Leakage	Network activity

International comparisons - water efficiency

Recent droughts in America, Australia and Europe have highlighted water resource constraints and water companies are increasingly recognising the benefits of promoting the efficient use of water ('water efficiency') in managing their supply/demand balance. Water efficiency covers a range of activities, including:

campaigns to raise customer awareness of their water use;
household and non-household audits;
cistern devices;
supply pipe repairs and replacements;
water recycling;
fixing leaking taps and retrofitting taps, shower heads and toilets; and
metered tariffs.

The water efficiency activities carried out by water companies in England and Wales were published last year in our 'Security of supply 2006-07' report. We also publish a 'Water efficiency initiatives: good practice register', which promotes current best practice in the sector. In 2006-07 we introduced voluntary water efficiency targets for the companies in England and Wales for the first time. We are currently consulting on setting 'Future water efficiency targets' from 2010-11.

One of the purposes of the EU's Water Framework Directive is to promote sustainable water use. Article 9 of the Directive aims to ensure that water-pricing policies provide adequate incentives to use water resources efficiently. The European Environment Agency's 'Europe's environment – the fourth assessment' reports that rising prices in Denmark and Estonia between 1995 and 2005 led to significantly lower household water use. In Denmark this was because of the introduction of green taxes on water prices while in Estonia it reflected the removal of subsidies. In Australia, more sophisticated examples of seasonal and rising tariffs are used to reduce consumption. We have recently consulted on our 'Future strategy for customer charges for water and sewerage services' in order to address sustainability.

Water efficiency

Water efficiency - results for 2006-07

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