Waterwise Project

Who we are

As the independent experts, we support and challenge everyone to aim higher on water efficiency – whether that’s government, regulators, the water industry, or people and businesses.

Waterwise’s role is to innovate, to develop and test new ideas, to bring partners together for change and to help demonstrate practical water efficiency actions. We work at all levels – from changing the law to encouraging sector leaders to be more ambitious to supporting delivery teams through research and ideas. And we run campaigns on water efficiency across the UK right through the year.

We work in partnership to help other organisations and communities to fulfil our vision that water is used wisely every day, everywhere. We promote water-efficient products, services and innovation. And we help make connections.

We are at the heart of a huge network of stakeholders in the UK – as part of this, in 2022 we published our Water Efficiency Strategy to 2030, which we created with 70 organisations and has an ecosystem of groups and activity to deliver it. 

In our Strategic Direction to 2030 we set out how we will flex our independence even more, harness the power of partnerships, listen to a more diverse range of voices and, drive, develop and deliver even more campaigns. We are committed to playing our role in equity, diversity and inclusion in the water sector and we published our EDI statement setting out commitments on this in 2022.

Water scarcity is a huge issue right across the UK, right here, right now, and not just an issue for the future – water efficiency is a huge part of the solution, making the water we have go further, and reducing water and energy bills and carbon, as well as leaving more water in the environment to sustain our beautiful rivers and lakes, and economic and housing growth. We are very grateful for the support of our Supporters, Affiliates and sponsors, without whom we could not drive our vision. Do get in touch if you would like to work with us on water efficiency.

Our culture and values

Waterwise is the leading independent voice in the UK for using water wisely, for the benefit of people and the planet. Our vision is that water is used wisely every day, everywhere, by everyone. We are the UK’s conscience on water efficiency, on behalf of people and the planet, and are experts in water efficiency policy, regulation, research, behaviour and campaigns. Waterwise is a people-led organisation which prioritises the wellbeing of its staff.

As well as being primarily home-based (with expenses paid for travel), at Waterwise we work a Four Day Week - The 4DW is 80% of contracted hours for 100% of contracted pay – not simply a four day week paid at 0.8 of a full-time salary, or compressed hours. 4DW Global, the not-for-profit organisation which ran the UK trial, has been listed as one of Time’s 100 Most Influential Companies, alongside Apple and Disney. 

After a full year’s trial, organisational and staff metrics at Waterwise showed that not only had staff wellbeing – already at a high level – improved, but finances were even stronger than a comparative year. Crucially, external impact in delivering against Waterwise’s vision that water is used wisely every day, everywhere, by everyone, could clearly be seen. Today Waterwise announces that it has moved to the 4DW permanently.

The climate emergency will affect different people and places unevenly, and so is likely to lead to inequalities within and across nations, and between current and future generations, creating injustice.

This is why we put great emphasis on climate justice in our work. Climate justice for us means actively correcting this to ensure that the impacts of water scarcity are felt fairly in the UK. Specifically, it means ensuring that water efficiency policies, programmes and messages do not reinforce or make worse existing systemic biases against people both with protected characteristics and with other characteristics which make them vulnerable to bias, such as low family income – and also taking care of the natural environment from which we source the water.

Equality, diversity and inclusion policy

At Waterwise, we’re committed to driving equity and preventing discrimination at work and in the work we do. We know that simply having a diverse workforce is not enough. We want to create an inclusive environment within Waterwise, and in our work and events, where everyone can contribute their best and develop to their full potential. We celebrate and value how different everyone is, and we work hard to ensure everyone is treated with dignity and respect. This aligns with our ‘People’ value that we will prioritise staff wellbeing, and will be an inclusive, kind and positive team.

A great deal of our impact is delivered in partnership. We commit to engaging and collaborating with a wider range of communities, to help deliver climate justice and social justice through water efficiency. We will use our independence to drive more equity, diversity and inclusion in the environment and water sectors, positively influencing where we can.

We are taking steps such as anonymous applications and focusing on skills and not just experience, to debias our recruitment to the Waterwise Board and staff team. We measure the diversity of our Board and staff team annually and we have measures in place to drive and measure inclusion at work, and how it feels to work here. We seek to ensure a wider range of voices at our events by setting ourselves targets and have had some success on this, but have more to do. We factor climate justice into our work streams. We have updated our vision to make clear that it includes everyone. 

We commit in 2023/24 to continue to measure a) the diversity of voices at our events and in our campaigns; and b) in more depth how it feels to work for and with us – our level of cultural maturity towards an inclusive environment and approach. We will report against this and the existing measures set out above in 2024 – this baseline will inform our future equity, diversity and inclusion targets and goals.

We are also proud members of Race Equality Matters.