Bristol Water Environmental Policy
Since 1846, Bristol Water has provided water to the people of Bristol, and the Company now provides water to over a million people across an area of more than a thousand square miles. As well as contributing to the quality of the environment, we rely on this quality for our business. Our overall vision is straightforward: we will provide a sustainable, affordable and reliable supply of water, that customers have confidence in and are happy to drink.
Good environmental management is given a high priority at Bristol Water. This policy explains our overall approach, and further information is provided in the documents listed overleaf below.
Governance
We will comply with all applicable environmental legislation and ensure we are aware of any developing legislation. We will require our business partners to do the same. We will monitor and report our key environmental impacts every month and work constantly to control these, with external reports published each year. If we ever cause a pollution event, we will immediately inform the appropriate regulators and work with them to resolve it as quickly and effectively as possible.
Climate Change
We accept the reality of climate change and we will rise to the challenges it presents. We will ensure that our investment and maintenance is managed in a way which mitigates our climate change impact and takes account of unavoidable change, and we will maintain close links with key stakeholders on climate change research.
Biodiversity
We will continue our custodianship of our sites, including designated special sites, and work to increase our understanding of them. Work on these sites will be done sensitively and where we can reasonably create an extra benefit to biodiversity we will do so.
Waste
Our rate of leakage is already below the economic level, but we believe this needs to be reduced further and include the full environmental cost of leakage - we will also continue to work with our customers on water saving. We will monitor and manage all our other waste and require our business partners to do the same, with tight controls on waste disposal and rates of recycling.
Bristol Water Environmental Policy
Conservation, Access & Recreation
We will continue to provide excellent access to our recreational sites, and encourage visitors to enjoy the beautiful environment in which we work. We will report each year on the work we have done in this area.
Travel
We will maintain our Green Travel Plan and continue with a low-emission, well-maintained vehicle fleet, including hybrid vehicles where appropriate. We will monitor and report the mileage and fuel consumption of our fleet and seek to reduce this environmental impact. We will also encourage staff to avoid travel altogether by teleworking where possible.
Abstraction and Discharge
We will comply with all the conditions of our abstraction licences and ensure that the water we use from the environment is taken responsibly. If problems occur we will work with the landowners and other stakeholders and seek to resolve these in a sustainable way. Where we discharge any waste water to the environment, we will ensure this meets the requirement of discharge consents set by our regulators.
Relevant documents
This Environmental Policy gives an overview of our approach to environmental management.
Our Environmental Vision gives more detail on the Environmental Policy, and explains the long and short-term targets we have set ourselves.
Our document Water in the Future outlines our overall plans for the next 25 years.
Our document Water in the Future: Our Commitment to the Environment explains how our commitment to the environment influences the way we work and how it links with our 25-year plans
Our Environmental Management Procedure explains how we allocate responsibility for environmental management in the company. |
