Despite highlighting the significant role water efficiency can play in saving household energy, demand management was largely overlooked in the landmark Mission Zero report to government.
Chris Skidmore’s review of the UK’s journey to net zero urges the government to grasp opportunities along the way, including the benefits of a circular economy approach to treating wastewater.
The report notes that heating water currently accounts for around 12% of a typical domestic energy bill and makes up about 5% of the UK’s total carbon dioxide emissions. It also highlights that water resources will be stretched as a result of the changing climate, leaving a deficit of five billion litres daily by the middle of the century.
However, it does not make water demand reduction suggestions as part of efforts to decarbonise the country.
Elsewhere in the review there are calls for collaboration between regulators, including Ofwat, to co-ordinate on the signals they are sending to businesses and investors across sectors about the net -ero transition.
The government is also urged to take a more ambitious approach to managing waste, including encouraging re-use and recycling to decrease emissions and opening up markets through circular economy opportunities to benefit from biproducts.
While recovery of some nutrients from sewage treatment already takes place, the review says UK policy has “been too slow and is failing to grasp these opportunities” to their fullest.
It also says a taskforce should be set up to work with industry to create sector-specific circular economy business models that highlight barriers and enablers for priority sectors. Processing waste and wastewater contributes 4.2% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions. Methane released during sewage treatment is a significant contributor to that total. Research by Severn Trent suggests emissions from nitrous oxide and methane during wastewater processing at sewage plants are many times higher than previously understood.
The paper says options for managing waste and wastewater should be prioritised as prevent, re-use, recycle, recover and, only if none of the above are possible, then disposed of.