Anglian Water has developed a whole life carbon and cost in design concept, having been granted funding under the Ofwat Innovation Fund.
The project, ‘Enabling whole life carbon in design’, will put carbon at the heart of both design and governance decision making processes and on an equal footing with cost. It has been led by Anglian Water alongside Affinity Water and Welsh Water with supporting partners @one Alliance, Skanska and Sweco.
Unchecked carbon emissions are reportedly an important factor of climate change worldwide. The project is said to provide the tools required to support the behavioural changes necessary to deliver low whole life carbon and cost investments and, ultimately, zero carbon emissions.
The project aims to empower the sector to move from capital and operational carbon accounting —the measurement of capital and operational carbon footprints — to whole life carbon cost management. This approach will deliver time, cost, energy and carbon savings throughout a project’s lifecycle, and support the sector in delivering benefits for the environment and its customers.
Anglian Water has announced an online introductory webinar on 4 Oct 2023 to present the project to the wider sector. This will be followed by three technical online workshops on 7, 14 and 21 Nov 2023, providing details on the components needed for organisational implementation.
Project lead Laura Taylor, Innovation project manager, @one Alliance, said, “We are delighted to share our methodology and database template with the rest of the UK water industry and its wider value chain, to enable decisions regarding carbon reduction based on data insights and visualisations.
She added that its playbook and carbon accounting tool are applicable to both the UK and international water sectors. “The methodology, tools and processes that have been developed can be tailored to any part of the built environment sector and any project, irrespective of size,” she said.
