Getting up a thirst for evolving partnerships

Like all water companies operating throughout the UK, Yorkshire Water knows the value of water. They supply around 1.24 billion litres of drinking water every day to the Yorkshire region, and treat a billion litres of waste water, returning it safely to the environment.

The company operates more than 700 water and sewage treatment works and looks after 62,000 miles of water and sewerage mains - enough pipework to circulate the earth.

As one of the founding partners of international water and sanitation charity WaterAid, they also understand the fundamental role clean water plays in overcoming poverty. Children can avoid deadly diseases when they have safe, clean water to drink and wash their hands; teenage girls can stay in school when there are good sanitation facilities; and women can earn a living when they don’t have to waste their days collecting dirty water from distant sources.

Since WaterAid was set up by members of the UK water industry more than 30 years ago, Yorkshire Water has remained a committed partner, supporting WaterAid’s vision of universal access to water and sanitation. Employees have raised funds, volunteered their time and supported the charity’s advocacy work. And as a company, they have encouraged support from customers and suppliers. In 2012/13, Yorkshire Water raised more than £260,000 to support WaterAid’s work.

Last year, as they entered a new business planning period, the company changed their approach to the WaterAid partnership, taking it beyond traditional fundraising targets and fully embedding WaterAid in their business strategy.
For the first time they included global safe water as a business objective in their Blueprint for Yorkshire corporate strategy. They committed to raise £1 million over five years to fund water and sanitation projects across Ethiopia, and they agreed to support WaterAid across six key areas: capacity building, campaigning, education, volunteering, fundraising and customer engagement.

Building capacity
WaterAid’s approach is to work with communities and local partners to design and build sustainable water, sanitation and hygiene facilities. By linking up water and sanitation professionals in the UK and Ethiopia , Yorkshire Water is helping to address some of the capacity building needs of local partners in Ethiopia identified by the WaterAid Ethiopia team.

By sharing knowledge and learning from the issues they face in their own region, Yorkshire Water is helping to tackle some of the major challenges facing utility providers in urban areas of Ethiopia including: revenue collection, leakage, water quality and waste management.

Influencing government agenda
As governments debate the next steps to the Millennium Development Goals to eradicate extreme poverty, WaterAid is campaigning for water, sanitation and hygiene to be at the heart of the new goals.

Using their connections with local MPs, Yorkshire Water employees are supporting WaterAid’s campaigning activity, encouraging decision-makers to push water and sanitation further up the political agenda. And by joining forces with other water industry representatives, the company is using its position as water and wastewater service providers to encourage the UK government to prioritise water and sanitation.

Educating future customers
Working with schools and youth groups to promote water conservation and responsibility is part of Yorkshire Water’s ongoing community outreach programme. Including WaterAid messages in these education activities brings a global water message to schools across the region. 

Their Water Exchange programme is promoting the value of reliable water and sanitation services to children and young people – the company’s future customers. As part of the new partnership plan, the Yorkshire Water education team is also making young people aware of the millions of people around the world living without clean water and proper sanitation. And of the health and economic benefits investing in clean water and sanitation can bring.

They are also one of the companies involved the water industry education forum. Anne Reed, Yorkshire Water’s Education and Volunteer Adviser, says the forum is: “an opportunity for individual companies to benchmark their education programmes against the rest of the industry. By aligning our messages with WaterAid we can also give our education programmes a global dimension.”

Supporting employee volunteering and fundraising
The company’s new Hands Up volunteering initiative, offers employees opportunities to volunteer with a number of local and international charities, including WaterAid. By supporting staff to organise fundraising events, take part in individual fundraising activities and deliver talks to local schools and community groups, they are meeting their own employee development targets. They also offer opportunities to donate regularly to WaterAid through payroll giving and employee lottery schemes.

Engaging Yorkshire Water’s customers
By supporting WaterAid’s vision of universal access to safe water, the company is demonstrating to its customers the value it places on providing reliable clean water supplies in its own region.

Like many of WaterAid’s water company partners, they have been offering customers opportunities to support WaterAid for more than 20 years. By including WaterAid leaflets in customer bills, they have helped to recruit more than 13,000 new supporters and raise £7.3 million.

This year, they are trialling new ways to engage their customers by including text-to-give details in customer mailings and encouraging visits to a dedicated Yorkshire Water donation page on WaterAid’s website.

In November last year, three of Yorkshire Water’s engineering team visited Ethiopia and met with the WaterAid team to learn more about the work being done and to discuss ways they could exchange knowledge and experience. They saw first-hand some of the problems faced by local partners in delivering water services and visited communities who are currently living without clean water and adequate sanitation.

The trip really helped to cement the new partnership plan. Blogging throughout their visit and holding a series of staff updates when they got back, they were able to share their experience and motivate colleague to continue to support WaterAid by showing how clean water really does have the power to change lives.