House of Fraser Extends Deal with Business Stream

House of Fraser has switched a further eight of its stores in England to Business Stream for water services. The move follows Business Stream’s successful partnership at three of the retailer’s flagship stores which were transferred in June last year.

Branches in Gateshead, Guildford, High Wycombe, Huddersfield, London (Baker Street), Milton Keynes, Plymouth and Wolverhampton are now being supplied by Business Stream, one of the UK’s largest non-domestic water retailers.

The arrangement includes wider support on water management across the whole of the House of Fraser estate to help the company understand its water usage and improve efficiency. Business Stream has also carried out a validation exercise to ensure the accuracy of historic water billing for all of the organisation’s sites across England.

As part of this partnership approach, Business Stream has been installing automated meter readers (AMRs) into stores across their English estate. This follows the successful AMR deployment at House of Fraser stores in Edinburgh and Glasgow. AMR technology automatically measures water consumption every 15 minutes allowing for more accurate billing and the easier identification of problems such as leaks.

Jo Dow, CEO at Business Stream said:  “We’re delighted that our partnership has been extended following the successful implementation of a range of water efficiency measures designed to support House of Fraser’s ambitious sustainability goals. It is very positive news as we gear up to welcome more new customers when the English water market fully opens for competition next year. We are very confident that we can reduce water usage and the associated costs for other businesses as we have done for House of Fraser and many of our other customers across the UK.”

In June, Business Stream announced that it was buying the non-domestic customer base of Southern Water, which will create the third biggest player in the Anglo-Scottish market.

Business Stream continues to play a key role in the development of the English market and has been an active participant in the UK Government’s consultations on the subject.

Scotland’s non-domestic market, which covers all premises across private and public sector organisations, opened to competition in April 2008, and Business Stream customers have since saved more than £133 million on their water bills.

Dr. Dorothy Maxwell, Head of Sustainability said: “Business Stream’s support and expertise in water saving, recycling, auditing and leak protection is helping us to become even more efficient. This supports our wider sustainability ambitions, which are extremely important to us, and provides greater value to our business. We look forward to the benefits seen in our flagship stores being extended to the further eight that they will support.”