54. 22-04-21 A Roadmap for the Future of Water Innovation

It was a great pleasure to host the 11th in our series of Water Conservators webinars titled “A Roadmap for the Future of Water Innovation”. Professors Joby Boxall and Vanessa Speight of the University of Sheffield gave us a fascinating insight into a vision and roadmap for the water sector that they have developed as leaders of TWENTY65, the UKRI / EPSRC water grand challenge consortium, involving 6 universities and over 250 partners that has been envisioning and undertaking disruptive research to enable adaptable, resilient and sustainable water futures.

They began the presentation by outlining the core concept of collaboration between Water Service Providers, Academia, Supply Chain and other Stakeholders on the basis that there was no one “silver bullet” that would fit all solutions. The key questions they set out to answer were how can water services provide a positive benefit to the environment, economy, society, what socio technical solutions would work best, in which combinations, in different locations, and how to address ageing water infrastructure in the journey to becoming sustainable, adaptable and resilient?

Having set out the key future drivers for the water sector and performance metrics, they then tested the performance of solutions under different drivers to assess the performance of solutions. The largest differentiator between future scenarios was the extent of decentralisation, so priority technologies were considered under both centralised and decentralised futures. They then gave us examples of both scenarios and considered the possibilities of combining these futures. The key message was that possible futures will be different, designed to match to local context and situation.

Joby and Vanessa’s presentation was then followed by an excellent question and answer session where some of the key challenges for the UK water sector were discussed. On behalf of everyone I would again like to thank Joby and Vanessa for a brilliant presentation, and also give my thanks to everyone who attended making the webinar a great success.

53. 21-04-21 Livery Skills Event

It was a great pleasure to be invited, along with the Masters from many other livery companies, to the virtual Livery Skills Event, hosted by Victoria Russell, Chair of the Livery Committee and attended by over 150 participants.

After a short introduction by the Lord Mayor, Alderman William Russell, Professor Dr Anne Bamford OBE, Strategic Education and Skills Director at the City of London Corporation, gave a summary of key findings from the recent livery skills survey. 121 out of 125 liveries and guilds completed the survey. 92 out of 121 liveries (76%) spend over £10k per annum on skills development and 23 out of 121 (19%) spend over £100k. The principal types of activity were financial grants to individuals or programmes, and informal mentoring. The major types of support were based around industry links, apprenticeships, school support and youth development.

Kirstie Donnelly MBE, Chief Executive Officer at City and Guilds then outlined existing options and potential opportunities aimed at helping people get back into work, introducing skills bridges and “step into” programmes. Skill Bridges provide individuals with the insights, know-how and skills awareness to “bridge” them into employment. “Step Into” programmes provide new skills needed for individuals to transition into new jobs.

Tim Campbell MBE, Haberdasher, then put forward some recommendations for consideration including increasing existing involvements, and a central exchange for information and business contacts. This was followed by a question and answer session to discuss options and next steps.

52. 20-04-21 Livery Climate Action Gore Group Meeting

Tonight, I attended the second meeting of the Livery Climate Action Gore Group led by Alderman Alison Gowman (see Masters Blog No. 45 for details on the first meeting). The group is coordinating actions by the livery companies to fed into the City’s Climate Action Strategy. Around 50 people have volunteered to join working groups to progress various aspects of the City’s Climate Action Strategy, the Water Conservators have 8 volunteers, the largest of any City livery company. Finally, there is a core group of around 25 made up of presenters, facilitators and working group leads.

Alderman Alison Gowman indicated the key objective was to get Livery Companies green. However, the wider influence of the livery was discussed and recognised as potentially very beneficial in terms of climate change. I mentioned that for the Plastic Free City Campaign Water Conservators assisted the City of London Corporation (CoLC), and through them provided technical advice to key City businesses. Similar technical expertise could be provided for City businesses which would directly influence the City’s Climate Action Strategy targets. Also discussed was the possibility of producing something from the Livery Companies which the Lord Mayor could take to COP26 in November.

This was followed by a presentation on branding and name. Livery Climate Action Group was discussed as the name and generally agreed.  Three potential logos were presented and discussed.

In feedback from the working groups Robert Hughes-Penny (Finance) stated they were working on an Introduction to ESG and a glossary. Alison mentioned the CoLC were also producing a glossary. John Pike (Property) described the various sub-groups they were looking to form. This raised the issue of food and food waste (we waste 1 ton of every 3 tons of food produced). Alison said she would contact the Food Group regards a possible seminar on food and food waste. Gordon Masterton (General) reported back that the charter could be used as a guideline for each livery company. Averil MacDonald (Education) reported that the group had been working on a repository of information that could be used for education.

51. 16-04-21 Seminar on UN Sustainable Development Goals

Tonight, I attended the second seminar about the livery companies’ involvement with the City Climate Action Strategy. In 2015 the United Nations published 17 Sustainable Development Goals including climate action and this seminar explained the range of goals concentrating on climate action.

The evening began with a welcome from Alderman Alison Gowman followed by an introduction by the Lord Mayor, the Rt Hon Alderman William Russell. He spoke about the importance of the City’s Climate Action Strategy and mentioned some of the good work already undertaken by some livery companies including the Wax Chandlers support for Pollinating London, and the Water Conservator’s support for the Plastic Free City Campaign.

This was followed by 2 presentations, the first by Professor David Viner FIEnvSci, a visiting professor at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. He has been involved with the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change since 1992, was a Lead Author on the IPCC’s Special Report on Climate Change and Land and is currently a Co-ordinating Lead Author for the IPCC’s Working Group 2 Sixth Assessment Report.

David began by speaking about the global reach of the Green Investment Group which has committed over £20 billon to support green energy projects. He gave a brief history of the planet’s journey in terms of greenhouse gas emissions and global warming, then explained the importance of restraining global warming to 2 degrees to avoid a global tipping point where many important eco systems could be lost.

The second speaker was David’s colleague, Raphaelle Vallet, the Sustainable Finance Manager at the Green Investment Group. She leads on Macquarie Group’s strategy for COP26 and is helping implement net zero policies in GIG. She explained that to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees by 2100 means that carbon and Greenhouse Gas emissions need to reach net zero by 2050, and she warned that the world was currently not on track to meet these targets. Finally, she gave some background to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Conference of the Parties with the lead up to COP26 later this year, and how Climate Change was also vitally important to meeting many of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Following the presentations there was a short Question and Answer session followed by breakout groups where each group discussed key actions that their livery could take. I would like to offer my thanks to the speakers and to Alderman Alison Gowman and Dr Heather Barrett-Mold OBE for organising the event.

50. 13-04-21 Lord Mayor’s Virtual Coffee Morning

It was with great pleasure I attended one of the Lord Mayor’s Virtual Coffee Mornings. Each session involves around 25 participants and is an opportunity for the Lord Mayor to update livery companies on current events and to receive feedback from Masters.

Key items for discussion were the programme for re-opening the City, sustainability, and livery initiatives during the pandemic. With regards to re-opening the City, the Lord Mayor began by advising that plans were being made to hold the United Guilds Service on 22^nd June, but the numbers attending could depend on Government Guidelines yet to be issued. Masters of Livery Companies that own halls explained that were making plans to gradually re-open. The River Thames Lunch Club is planning to re-open from the 17^th May at the Watermans Hall based on tables of 6. The importance of opening up safely with testing was also stressed.

On sustainability the Lord Mayor began by explaining the City’s proud history on sustainability, including being the first area in the UK to ban coal fires back in 1953. He also spoke about the Livery Climate Action Strategy Group, the possibility of a Green Charter, and a series of “Green Tea” discussions he was having with Mark Carney, ex-Governor of the Bank of England. Ensuring sustainable City and Livery investments can also make a significant contribution to climate change. I explained how the Water Conservation Trust was looking to move some of its investments into ethical funds and that the returns were very similar to non-ethical funds. Some Masters also spoke about the benefits of reduced volumes of transport in the post pandemic world.

Finally, the Lord Mayor advised us on some of the important livery initiatives that provided key support during the pandemic. The Pan Livery report indicated that charitable giving by livery companies had increased by 12% with also 135,000 hours of voluntary service last year.

49. 30-03-21 Water Conservators Networking Evening

Tonight, I hosted our Water Conservators Networking Event which offers the opportunity for young members and other young water professionals to network both amongst themselves and meet up with members of the Water Conservators Company. Unfortunately as the situation with Covid-19 continues it was not possible to meet up physically and enjoy a glass of beer or two as normal, so the event had to be virtual via zoom. Nevertheless, a number of our members enjoyed the opportunity to meet up with some our current and ex bursary students sponsored by the Water Conservation Trust. The possibilities of mentoring and helping bursary students who take up the offer of becoming Associate Freemen was discussed.

Following a brief introduction on the Water Conservators Company from myself, Afzal Ginwalla started the evening with a short presentation where he outlined his journey from a bursary student supported by our Water Conservation Trust to becoming a liveryman of the Water Conservators Company, and then briefly talked about the Havant Thicket Reservoir project for Southern Water and Portsmouth Water, a current project he is working on. We then split everyone into groups of 5 or 6 for 3 sessions of breakout rooms to enable everyone to mix and talk. My thanks go to our members who attended, making it such a useful evening for our young professionals and students, and also to Afzal for his engaging presentation.