Today I attended a British Water “Better Together” Webinar hosted by Lila Thompson, CEO of British Water. The webinar consisted of 3 short presentations and a general discussion.
The first speaker was Colin Skellett, CEO, Wessex Water who spoke about the key issues for Water Companies of aging infrastructure, resilience, and climate change. He outlined the challenges of becoming carbon neutral, and the need for a 25 year resilience investment programme spending 2 to 3 times more than at present. He also highlighted the need to improve our rivers by dealing with storm overflows and working together on legislation. He was confident that most customers were prepared to pay for modest increases in bills over a long period provided social tariffs were used to protect the low paid.
The second speaker was the Rt. Hon Philip Dunne MP, Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, who gave an update on the Sewage (Inland Waters) Bill, which he will present to the House of Commons on Friday 15th January at 9.30 am. The objective was to improve the water quality of rivers and remove barriers that will help Water Companies and agriculture to reduce pollutions. His bill will encourage more real time monitoring of river water quality which will make the public more aware of the problem and the need for investment.
The final speaker was Stephanie Voelz, Vice President – Senior Credit Officer at Moody’s. She explained Moody’s role and how their credit ratings reflect the likelihood of a default and the expected loss. Currently a number of water companies have a negative outlook due to the recent tough regulatory review. Risks were classified into environmental, social and governance categories. The key risks under the environmental category were climate change, water stress and pollution. They haven’t negatively affected credit ratings to date but are likely to become more important in the future as the demand for water is predicted to rise by 25% by 2050. The key social risks were the provision of clean water, population growth and affordability. These haven’t affected credit ratings significantly to date but are again likely to be more important in the future. Also, debt management may be a significant future risk. Key risks under governance were based around board structure, financial and dividend policies plus internal controls and risk management.
A very enlightening webinar and I look forward to hopefully attending future British Water webinars.
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