Why Should I Care About Water?
- jamesalexanderfawc
- Oct 10, 2023
- 6 min read
Updated: Oct 11, 2023
Included: The Cost
Water for many of us is a fairly low item on our agenda. It is considered by most as an inevitable given and our consumption habits are often some of the least flattering sides of our production. Aside from a few marketable exception, we generally lack the appropriate regard for this liquid life. Many of us don’t even bother measuring it as it flows through our brewhouses.
Our disregard is based on assumptions that are dangerously flawed. I’d like to take 5 minutes to talk a bit about some of the issues with these assumptions, and the consequences of not addressing them.
The Cost
“it’s not that much”
Cost can be broken down into 2 main branches: Monetary and Environmental. Here are the costs of water against another primary utility; electricity.
| Electricity (kWh) | Water (HL) |
pence | 34 | 17.76 |
kg CO2e | 0.2556 | 0.0177 |
And at this rate, it's understandable why we might prioritise energy usage.
Monetary
I imagine this is where most of us leave it when assessing the cost of water. Compared to our energy expenditure it’s relatively low.
But it is not nothing. Even at its base appreciation as a utility bill, the cost of potable water is not negligible to a brewery. If your water usage ratio is larger than average, bringing it towards the smaller side would show a noticeable change to your water bill.
100 HL beer produced
17.76p per HL of potable water
4.6 bbl/bbl - £81.7
14 bbl/bbl - £248.64
potential savings per brew - £166.94
potential savings per year - £16,694 (assuming 10,000 HL per year)
We should also realise that the base amount we pay for our water is not an accurate representation of the final cost. Water is very rarely used in the state that it arrives at the brewhouse. RO filtration, heating/cooling, chemically treating and reprocessing will all contribute an additional cost.
How much could you save on your energy bill by improving your water efficiency?
Environmental
Like all processing that is yet to be decarbonised, there are emissions associated with the production of potable water. There are also emissions associated with the processing of effluent. This will obviously increase if your effluent is taxing on the system.
Supply 0.0177
Treatment 0.0201
kg CO2e per HL of potable water, Defra
There is also the direct impact your effluent can have on the environment. Although most of us use chemicals that naturally degrade over time, they need to be isolated and treated to prevent them from harming the immediate environment before the have a chance to. The environmental cost from CIP effluent, especially inefficient CIP effluent that is still quite potent, could be significant. Unfortunately, there is quite clear indication that the necessary preventative measures are not being undertaken, which takes us to our 2nd dangerous assumption.
The Current
“things seem to be fine”
If you don’t manage your own water supply, like most of us, you are at the mercy of the privatised municipal. Although most are not pretty, I’ll focus on Thames Water as they are the largest provider here in the UK and seem to be the worst. Here are some recent achievements of Thames Water.
Thames Water has shown a "deliberate attempt" to mislead the Environment Agency over polluting rivers and lakes, such as by omitting water readings and submitting a report to the regulator denying responsibility. The water company has been fined £3.3mil earlier this year after pleading guilty to polluting rivers with sewage.
“Rapacious” profiteering of shareholders and other financial service groups (many overseas) loading their debt onto the utility firm (accumulating to £14billion) at the same time as receiving £4billion in dividends, has left Thames Water unable to maintain the service and protect against the future.
Our precious life line is in fact grossly mismanaged. Not only has this had a significant impact on the environment, which I’m afraid to say that our untreated effluent will have contributed, but the money required to sort themselves out will be coming out of your pocket. In fact we’re looking at 40% increases to our water bills.
The Future
"loads of time"
According to Sir James Bevan, Chief Executive of the Environment Agency, we are likely to experience severe water shortages in 25 years.
If 25 years are the ‘jaws of death’ as he says, what does 12 years look like? Or 5 years?
London receives much less water than most of us think. Istanbul, Barcelona, Athens amongst many other European cities get much more water from the skies than our capital.
James Wallace, chief executive of River Action, has warned that the chalk streams which provide London with drinking water are already at risk of drying up. For the first time since privatisation in 1989, Thames Water is trying to build a new 50-billion-litre reservoir in Abingdon, Oxfordshire. They are finding it difficult to afford.
“We’re not talking 20, 30, 40 years, we’re talking imminently” James Wallace
To understand the risk of the precarious situation, we need to understand who we share our watershed with. Breweries are some of the most water intensive users within any watershed, and some watersheds, especially in London, have multiple breweries.
If resources become limited, a system will have to be put in place to decide how to allocate water. Although we don’t have allocation rules yet in the UK, many other countries do. In all of them, industrial requirements are either the 2nd lowest or lowest priority, which is not surprising when you consider Domestic, Environmental and Health requirements.
Models attempting to accommodate for growth in CO2 reduction rates use GDP as a key function for allocating CO2 emission expenditure. If your company is not growing, you are required to reduce your carbon footprint quicker. Although I think it’s likely that the water allocated will have some sector considerations (beverage manufacturing would probably get more than media agencies), I do not think it is unreasonable to suggest that GDP may be used to determine which brewery gets the water.
So for many of us, the very reason why we are not acting on water now (financial incentive) may very well be the reason why we might not get the water we need to run our business in the future.
Conclusion
"there’s nothing we can do about it"
There is a lot of pressure on the public to change their wasteful ways. Like the individual carbon footprints championed by BP to weigh the public down with their own guilt, a call for halving shower time seems ridiculous when you consider the waste that is not being held accountable for by Thames Water.
And even if it was a fair approach, changing the behaviour of such a huge amount of individuals is not the realm of reasonable argument, but propaganda. Only the marketing puppeteers can make that seismic change.
But our brewing industry is not huge. It’s actually a very manageable 2200; some people have more people than that on their LinkedIn. And it packs a punch. As we have seen, breweries are likely to be the most water intensive users within their watershed, which puts us in an important position with responsibility.
We have to start being more involved politically. Thames Water looks like they will enter a special administration regime (SAR). The Government are literally in the process of deciding what to do. We have seen that Rishi’s sustainability constitution is wavering. Now is the time we should be putting pressure on our government for reform that protects our water supply, whether that is re-nationalisation or an extreme overhaul of Ofwat.
But it is hard to stimulate healthy interest in a subject that is neglected and mismanaged in our own brewhouses. It is hard to be proud enough to stand up for yourself and others if your house is not in order. We need to nurture our consideration for water so that we can feel responsible enough to do something about it.
If the brewing industry is up there with the most water intensive activities of any watershed, any water management improvements we make to our sector can have a significant impact on the strain of the supply. Management starts with measurement and we should ensure full awareness of the flow of water through our brewhouses.
Particular attention should be put to:
CIP regimes
Overflows
Dry floor policies
It is also essential that we consider that some of our effluent is likely leaking out of the drains and into the environment. Careful and efficient use of chemicals will save you both money as well as environmental degradation. Until we can rely on our municipal provider, we must ensure we are more aware of our potential impact.
Water is so important to us all and it needs to be protected. Most people don’t have the power to do something about it but we do. Do you want to ensure that your water is being managed effectively? Get in touch and we can see what needs to be done.
Good luck out there,
James
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