You’ve recently moved from the RHS to Artesia. How did that come about?

I’d been really happy at the RHS. Having one foot in the water industry and one in horticulture felt like exactly where I wanted to be. But I’d known Artesia for a long time and had worked with them at arm’s length, including on the RHS bid for Ofwat funding for research into outdoor water use. When the chance came up to join them, it was a natural fit. So, I’m back in water industry consulting, and Artesia is still involved in that RHS project, which is lovely.

What does Artesia do?

Artesia brings together data specialists and consultants who understand the figures and networks behind water. Through insight and collaboration, we translate complex data into practical deliverable strategies. Lots of our work is focused on how the sectormanages demand for water in the most sustainable way possible. We have real expertise in leakage, metering, demand management, water efficiency and demand forecasting, and we work with water companies and regulators across all of those.

What does your role look like day to day?

A lot of my work at the moment is on long-term water resources planning. Water companies have to work out how they’ll close the gap between the water they can supply, and the water people need, and there’s a long list of possible demand management options: water efficiency, leakage reduction, metering and more. Our job is to help work out which combination makes most sense, weighing up cost, volume, carbon and how many people are likely to take up each one.

What makes it interesting is that the options don’t sit in isolation. Put in smart meters early, for example, and you open up new options later, because you can start to spot continuous flows and target leakage much more precisely.

It also changes how you value some of the smaller measures. Take a water butt. Over a year, 600 litres of harvested rainwater in one household isn’t much. But if that water is used during a heatwave, when demand peaks, 200 litres in a single week can make a real difference, add in some expert advice on maintaining healthy soil and the benefits could be more than the volume held in the water butt. We’ve had five of those peak periods this year, so how you assess an option, matters as much as the option itself.

Artesia has traditionally worked with water companies. Where do businesses fit in?

That’s the change I’ve brought with me. I think the water industry believes it has to solve every problem itself: do the water efficiency and find the water to supply everyone. But a lot of the solutions can come from businesses, if you can find the right way in.

And businesses have a lot at stake. If the supply deficit isn’t closed, the risk is that businesses run short of water. That rarely means the taps just stop. It might be pressure dropping so far that a restaurant can’t run its coffee machine fast enough and customers go elsewhere. Or cisterns not refilling quickly enough, so you get blockages the plumber can’t fix because there isn’t enough water at the right time. For some sites, it could mean having to close, and no people on site means no income.

We’re now working directly with business clients, and I’m hoping that work becomes a blueprint we can use more widely.

You’re not a fan of simply telling businesses to save water. Why not?

Because it rarely works. Water is often one of the cheapest supplies on the balance sheet, and as long as you can afford the bill, it’s fine. Staff time, diesel, gas and electricity are always much further up the list.

So I’d rather stop talking just about saving water and look for the other messages that businesses might find more compelling: measures to cut water use also mean businesses can use less staff time, less fuel, fewer resources. The water savings then drop out as a bonus, along with a line that says you’ve reduced your business risk as well.

Can you give an example?

One of the last projects I worked on at the RHS was refitting the plant centre at RHS Hyde Hall in Essex. Ecoprod did some of the logging and metering for us there.

We replaced the timber benches with aluminium ones that have plastic trays built in. They cost more upfront, but they’ll last around 30 years rather than 10 to 12, so that’s a better use of capital straight away. The trays mean water goes to the plants from below rather than overhead, so you stop watering the paths and all the gaps between the pots. Watering from below also helps with the transition to peat free composts, as they are made from a multitude of plant products, they all have different water holding capacity, so plants from different suppliers will not all need the same overhead dose of irrigation, they will absorb the right amount of water they need by capillary action from below, reducing the risk of plant stress from too much or too little water.

Here’s the thing, though. The water savings themselves were significant but the cost of water savings, almost negligible. Most of the water comes from an on-site reservoir, so it costs very little to pump, and it’s tiny compared to the value of the plants. The case was made on staff time, plant stress and the risk that if the reservoir pump failed, mains water may not be accessible in a future severe drought.

Half the plant centre is hand watered, which meant someone going round with a hose over every single pot. Now you drop the hose in the tray and while it fills from below, you’re tidying, weeding, putting plants out and sweeping under the benches, and no pot gets missed. The person watering isn’t really spending their time watering anymore.

The plants are in much better condition too. I’ve watered a plant centre myself on a hot day, starting at 9am, getting to half past four and realising everything needs doing again. It only takes one day without water for a container plant to deteriorate, and a busy plant centre doesn’t have the space or the people to nurse it back to health. Better looking plants sell better and fewer are lost, and that’s where the real value is.

Does the same thinking work outdoors, beyond the plant centre?

Absolutely, and it can be really simple. At another garden, a lot of the gravel paths ran diagonally or straight down a slope. Every time the sprinklers went on, the paths directed the water downhill, contributing to eroding the paths.

The gardens team started digging ditches and berms across the contour whenever they were working in that area anyway. Now the water is caught and redirected into the soil. The paths need far less repair, less irrigation is needed and more rain soaks in when it does fall. It cost very little beyond a bit of extra staff time.

Why don’t more businesses spot those connections themselves?

Because people are focussed on their business and don’t think about water until they have to. When it’s cheap and it’s always there, it doesn’t register. It’s only when there’s too little, or too much in a flood, that it becomes an issue.

What matters to businesses is the bottom line. So we have to show how water affects it, and that’s not really about the water bill. It’s about everything else: the energy cost, the fuel, the staff, the lost stock, the risk of disruption.

Is the same true for households?

I think the blanket messages miss the point. Telling everyone to cut the same amount each day isn’t fair or effective. The people using 500 litres a day are the ones who have the greatest opportunity to cut back significantly, so that people who are already carefully using around 100 litres per day don’t have to feel guilty or worried about running out. Again, it’s about finding the hooks that persuade the right people to act.

What would you most like to see change?

I’d like every business to know where it is on its water management journey. The fundamental thing every business should do is record its water use, and that has to be easy. Sites can spend hours every month just collecting manual meter readings. It should be possible to walk round with your phone, log your meter and sub-meter readings as you go and get something straight back that says: this is what you used last month, so what’s changed?

The second thing is normalised targets. Water volumes on their own are hard to act on, because they rise and fall with how well a business is doing. You could be getting more efficient and still using more water because you’re making more products or seeing more visitors. At the RHS I set a target for water use per visitor. For a manufacturer it might be water per product. Once a business can see how efficient it already is, it can see the gap, and the potential.

So for me it comes down to two things. Normalised targets and finding the hooks.

Find out more

If you’d like to understand where your own site’s water goes, and what else it might be costing you, call us on 01483 773373 or email enquiries@ecoprod.co.uk.