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.

48. 22-03-21 WET10 Conference – Which Way Water 2050

It was with great pleasure that I introduced this year’s WET10 Conference titled “Which Way Water 2050”. The event was hosted by Deputy Master Mark Lane and featured 3 eminent speakers on the future of the water industry.

Chris Gray, Head of Water - Europe, Middle East & Africa, AECOM, spoke first about “Resilient Cities”. Chris began his presentation by explaining the need for more resilience cities in the future, as for the first time in history over 50% of the world’s population would be living in cities, with the demand for water increasing by 55%. Water is one of the top ten risks over the next 10 years with a water crisis named as the risk with the fourth largest impact. He then highlighted some of the key challenges we face and gave examples of how these future challenges could be met both for new cities such as Neom, KSA and existing cities such as London. In conclusion Chris said that in order to build resilience for future cities we needed to radically change the way we think about water, driving innovation to ensure we have the capacity or resources to meet demand increases in a sustainable way.

The second presentation on “Digital Water from 2021 to 2050 – A Brief History of the Future” was by Joanna Kelsey, Head of UK Water Digital Services, Stantec. Joanna began by explaining how digital water will be critical for the future, but humans will still play a vital part in delivering the outcomes in unison with digital technology. In the future digital water will protect the environment by the holistic management of the catchment enabling a higher level of collaborative management to minimise the environmental impact. Digital water will create improved resilience as local knowledge is embedded in the control philosophy and automated operational decisions and Digital water will also enable better engagement with the customer by providing transparency of system performance.

The final presentation “Water 2050 - Developing the Skills for Tomorrow’s Challenges” was by Phil Beach CBE - Chief Executive, Energy & Utility Skills. He suggested that it was not about developing the skills for 2050 but more about ensuring we have the ability to adjust the skill set quickly to adapt to rapidly changing requirements. So, in order to meet the skill set required for 2050 we should be focusing on an architecture that can adapt to rapidly changing technology rather than focusing on specific skills that may or may not be needed.

The presentations were then followed by a fascinating question and answer session led by Deputy Master Mark Lane. 151 participants attended the conference, a record for our virtual events so far. On behalf of everyone I would again like to thank our speakers, Deputy Master Mark Lane for organising and host the event, Past Master Simon Catford for managing the zoom technology, and also give my thanks to everyone who attended making the conference a great success.

47. 22-03-21 Clean City Awards Ceremony

I was delighted to attend the City of London Corporation Clean City Awards ceremony today. The event was hosted by Keith Bottomley, Chairman of the Port Health and Environmental Services Committee and Joe Kingston, Business Improvement Manager at the City of London Corporation. There was a short introduction by the Lord Mayor, Alderman William Russell, who stressed the importance of the awards, which now have been running for 26 years, and how new awards were being introduced this year to support the City’s Climate Action Strategy of achieving Net Zero by 2040 in investments and supply chain activity.

Keith Bottomley (photo below) then explained some of the important developments of the past year including the City’s move to a net zero waste and recycling fleet, and the introduction of new awards recognising the importance of sustainability. Also, a £50 million business recovery fund has been set up.

Keith and Joe then introduced each of the business awards, which were presented to the winning City businesses by the sponsors of each award. It was with great pleasure that I presented this year’s Plastic Free City award to the winners Investec PLC. The event concluded with the presentation of the Clean Streets Partnership award plus the Sweeper and Operators Award. Although the event had to be virtual this year, and I’m sure everyone missed the splendour of Mansion House, it was important that the award ceremonies were continued to recognise the very important role they play in encouraging businesses and operators to maintain high standards regarding the environment set by the City. 

46. 17-03-21 TWENTY65 Conference

This week I attended the TWENTY65 Conference on the future of the water industry and on Wednesday gave a presentation on the Water Conservators input into the City of London’s Climate Action Strategy. The presentation highlights how the water industry has a significant part to play in achieving the City and UK’s target of Net Zero by 2040.

The TWENTY65 group is made up of a consortium of UK universities, funded initially by the EPSRC, that will develop social and technological solutions tailored to specific challenges at niche locations within the water cycle. The TWENTY65 team aim to bridge the innovation gap between cutting-edge academic research and the wider water industry by bringing the industry together to think about water in entirely new ways.

The TWENTY65 Conference was attended by a wide mix of water professionals and academics including Joby Boxall, Professor of Water Engineering at Sheffield University, Tony Harrington, Director of Environment at Welsh Water and Nicole Ballantyne, from KTN, who is a judge for the Ofwat Innovation Fund. The conference opened with keynote speeches from Baroness McIntosh from the All Party Parliamentary Water Group, and John Russell from Ofwat. There were participants both from the UK and overseas.

Highlight of the week for me was attending my first virtual exhibition, which was a part of the conference. The software enabled you to walk around a virtual exhibition hall and visit various stands. You could click on a stand to view material such as videos and web links by the exhibitor and stop and talk to the exhibitors. Water Conservators had a stand and I had some really interesting and useful conversations, including with a student at Newcastle University researching water quality in service reservoirs and an academic from Australia looking at Sustainable Urban Drainage schemes for cities. I can see the virtual exhibition is going to play a key role in the future, and communication on innovation will be truly global, thus reducing the amount of air travel and hotel bills.

45. 15-03-21 Climate Action Livery Core Group

Today I attended a meeting of the City’s Climate Action Strategy Core Group led by Alderman Alison Gowman. There were over 200 attendees at the first seminar on 26^th January representing over 50 livery companies. Around 50 people have subsequently 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.

Four working groups have been formed. An Investments Group to be led by Robert Hughes-Penney and Liz Field with the aim to create a guide for Livery Companies as to how to address their own portfolio and consider issues of ESG and a plan towards net zero by 2040.

A Property Group to be led jointly by John Clink with the Chartered Surveyors and Chartered Architects with the aim to create a framework for Liveries with Halls, residential or investment properties as to what needs to be done and how to achieve it; setting up an expert group who could give pro bono initial advice on what could be done in any given property.

An Education Group to be led by Averil MacDonald and Heather Barrett-Mold, with the aim to build on existing seminars training and events already in existence and create a database/resource of information for re-use ( eg. Horners’ lectures); to liaise with Livery Schools Links around their agenda with schools and teaching staff; to provide education to adults as well as students.

And finally, a General Group led by Gordon Masterton and Alison Gowman with the aim to create a Livery Charter as a pledge and guidance for Livery Companies to know what they can do and to commit to doing it.

Most of the Working Groups have already had their first meeting and a second seminar is to be planned for April/May. Alderman Alison Gowman confirmed that the Livery Committee website would create an area to communicate progress to the livery and signpost this on their website.

44. 01-03-21 City Giving Day Virtual Launch

The City Giving Day 2021 campaign began on Monday 1 March with an online event. Every year the September event sees businesses and organisations in the City and beyond Go Red and make some noise about the power of charity, giving and philanthropy. This year’s event will take place on Tuesday 21 September 2021. CEO Caroline Wright introduced the virtual launch, welcoming nearly 190 people, and telling everyone what the Lord Mayor’s charity partners Place2Be, OnSide Youth Zones, Samaritans and DofE have been doing during the pandemic.

The Rt Hon The Lord Mayor Alderman William Russell then spoke about how the number of organisations involved in the event had increased significantly in the last few years and why he had set the target of involving a record 692 organisations this year, as he was 692^nd Lord Mayor. Last year the event raised £300,000 for good causes. Jan Foster, Programme Manager for City Giving Day, explained that this event was the opportunity for businesses to shout about what they are doing for philanthropy and charity.

This was followed by representatives from 3 City businesses describing their key charitable activities as examples of how businesses could raise money. Fiona McArthur, Community Investment Manager at Skanska explained how they support the communities they work in through their Lend A Hand week, an opportunity for employees to volunteer their time. Pranathi Praveen, a financial services manager at EY, described the day as one ‘of celebration’ and they ran a variety of activities that enabled people to celebrate giving, lend their time, and raise money for charity. Then finally Samantha Barnwell at Nomura, explained how they ran a hybrid gardening event.

The launch event concluded with break-out sessions that enabled participants to exchange ideas on how they might support the 2021 City Giving Day Event.