Southern Water is one of the largest users of energy in the South East due to the significant amounts of energy needed to pump water and wastewater around the region and treat it to the high standards expected by customers.

Last year, the company produced more than 290,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

Because the water industry is such an intensive user of energy, it is vital we carry out extensive carbon mitigation work to minimise our impact on the environment.

We are working to minimise the amount of carbon we produce through our daily operations, treatment works and employee behaviour. In addition, we are working to increase our generation of renewable energy and recoverable energy to offset our overall energy use.

Our aim is to build on our mitigation programme year by year, so that by 2015 we are mitigating our carbon dioxide emissions by 30,000 tonnes each year.

By 2020, we aim to produce 20 per cent of our electricity from renewable sources which do not produce carbon dioxide.