Water retailer joins Southeastern on its sustainability journey

THE UK’s longest established water retailer has signed a contract with Southeastern worth over £100,000 to support the rail company’s ambitious sustainability plans.

Business Stream will capture and digitally log all water consumption from stations and depots across parts South East London, Kent and East Sussex.

The company will analyse 160 sites operated by the rail operator and will also supply and install more than 120 new Automatic Meter Readers [AMRs] – a small device which sends meter readings every 15 minutes to a centralised point providing near real-time data.

Data captured from AMRs provide consumption insights, leak alerts and can help to deliver environmental benefits and financial savings by reducing waste.

The new partnership will help to increase Southeastern’s water efficiency while reducing its carbon footprint throughout its 176 stations.

Peter Stapleton, Southeastern’s Head of Facilities said: “We are thrilled to have entered into an innovative new partnership with Business Stream to accurately measure our water consumption. By rolling out automated metering we can become more accurate in the way we consume water, and this programme is an important milestone as we continue our journey to a better, more reliable, and sustainable railway”.

Business Stream’s AMR process has proved fruitful for other organisations, with the technology highlighting faults and leaks at Network Rail’s large depot in Edinburgh. It identified leaks that were wasting more than 4,800 litres of water per hour. After repairing the issues, the site’s carbon use was reduced by over 1.24kg CO2e per hour and reduced costs by over £100,000 per year.

Business Stream now hopes to replicate this success with one of the country’s biggest rail providers – which operates more than 1,700 train journeys a day and serves around 400,000 passengers from major stations such as London Victoria, London St Pancras, Dartford, Tonbridge, Sevenoaks and Ashford.

Tom Abel, Director of Sales at Business Stream said: “This contract is a great example of the role water efficiency technology can play in supporting businesses’ sustainability goals. With access to real-time water monitoring, leakage alert systems and data analytics, Southeastern will gain visibility into their water usage, helping the company to optimise water efficiency across their operations and achieve financial and environmental savings.”

Originally created in 2006 to offer best in class water services to businesses in Scotland, Business Stream later acquired the non-household customer base of Southern Water ahead of the planned opening of the English retail water market.

The company recently cut its carbon emissions by 50% in one year after rolling out a series of carefully planned measures to deliver environmental savings. The result, measured from April 2022 to April 2023, and externally verified, exceeded the retailer’s promise to cut emissions by 20% during the 12-month period.

Business Stream’s latest green successes mark a key component of its vision to make a positive difference (MAPD) to its customers, its people, the environment and its local communities.