Identifying Opportunities to Strengthen Engagement with Non-Household Businesses
Project status
Complete
Aim
This research project aims to identify opportunities for retailers and wholesalers to strengthen their engagement with non-household customers on the implementation of water stewardship practices. The applied research programme will help participants to understand and reduce their water use, which will help reduce financial cost relating to water and energy. It will also help businesses to help address and mitigate shared water challenges.
Final output
The project team published their final report in November 2025. Take a look at the project summary below and download the full project report:
Project updates
| Date | Update |
|---|---|
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19 December 2025 |
Project complete. Report published. Project team to present findings at January 2026 User Forum. |
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30 September 2025
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The final report is in production. The report is expected to examine five steps for retailers (and wholesalers) to strengthen business engagement with the business retail market (BRM). The steps include raising awareness of stewardship, offering practical supports (such as training and incentives), embracing circularity (through reuse/recycling), developing robust data tools, and promoting cross-sector collaboration. By moving beyond efficiency measures toward stewardship, the project aims to support a path to building resilience, protecting ecosystems, and aligning industry with national water security goals. The final report is expected in October. |
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12 August 2025 |
20Fifty are reviewing their draft report against the 88 recommendations emerging from the Cunliffe Report to to best showcase the benefits of adopting a water stewardship approach (quantity + quality + governance + catchment) in the UK. |
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12 March 2025 |
20Fifty held a water stewardship event, which was attended by MOSL. This was highly successful, featuring final reports from diverse sectors, including an airport, a university, two hospital trusts, a drinks manufacturer, a distribution company, and two food manufacturers. The variety of participants allowed for fresh perspectives while also highlighting common challenges. Attendees found significant value in the course, developing key outputs such as water maps, cost estimates, and business cases to enhance water management in their organizations, especially in response to rising water costs. At the market level there was lots of insight particularly around water wastage, all customers acknowledged they had baseline volumes even when their sites were closed with some acknowledging this was up to 40% of their usage. There were also some other prompts for the market on trade effluent, surface water and fire water/hydrants. |
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31 January 2025 |
The steering group update outlined steady progress across key workstreams: - Workstream 2, the Certified Water Stewardship (CWS) pilot, has finalised planning and participant recruitment, with 15 participants confirmed and workshops scheduled from January to March 2025 - Stakeholder consultations and water stewardship training will be completed by 31 March 2025 - The final report / roadmap and completion of initial CoP meetings will be completed by 31 August 2025. |
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20 November 2024 |
First Water Stewardship Community of Practice meeting took place at University of Leeds, gathering 26 participants from diverse sectors. |
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November 2024 |
Desktop research completed - will be integrated into final report |
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September 2024 |
Steering Group set up |