A key part of our role as Bluewave is to enable a culture of innovation, not only within our own team, but across Southern Water. Learning how to do things differently, and learning what works quickly, is fundamental to our values of always improving, doing the right thing and succeeding together.
One of Southern Water’s most important areas of focus is how we can work together with customers, businesses and developers across our region, to reduce the amount of water that we use every day. Our Target 100 programme set the vision for reducing average water usage to 100 litres per customer per day by 2040. This ambitious challenge requires us to identify new solutions that will enable us to meet our commitment to supporting our customers to use less water, in a way that is sustainable long term.
Last month, the Bluewave team, supported by our partners at Plus X innovation hubs, ran a three-day design sprint. Sprints are time-constrained, collaborative and creative events which seek to quickly define and test new ways to solve challenges. We were joined by experts from within and outside the sector to inspire new ideas and learn from others facing the same challenge. We introduced attendees to a range of innovation tools and training on how to rapidly generate ideas and pitch them for early-stage feedback.
During the sprint, we generated hundreds of new ideas; from new technologies and communications approaches, to how best to engage with our customers, communities, businesses and developer partners. These ideas will now form a backlog of strategic opportunities for the Target 100 programme, opening up our approach to engage more widely with our business customers and developer partners, so that we can all play our part in ensuring our environment can provide the water we rely on in the years to come.
Keep a look out for more on how we’re innovating to save water. If you’d like to learn more about our Target 100 programme or share an idea for a new product or process, please drop us an email: [email protected].