5. Peter Vale

Pete Vale (LinkedIn) is Carbon & Circular Economy Architect at Severn Trent Water. I was very keen to get his perspective for 3 reasons:
1. Severn Trent is a utility with responsibility for a key natural resource cycle (water).
2. It is heavily regulated, which sets (as you will hear) important context for any innovation effort.
3. The role of innovation architect was new to me, and I wanted to know what it meant.

We had a very rich conversation, and I learnt a lot.

This is part of a series of interviews about innovation for sustainability conducted for the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources, as a contribution to a module in this Masters.  You can find out more about these interviews, and the module, here.

SOME KEY POINTS
Role of 'innovation architect'.  Innovation architects are there to design the innovation programme, starting a tthe fuzzy front-end of the innovation process. -They scout the world for for new technologies, new developments, seeing how they line up against the organisation's innovation needs in the short-, medium- and long-term.
-They structure an on-going innovation programme.
-Once the innovation projects that have been validated, tested and very importantly funded, then handed over to the innovation delivery teams to actually run the projects.

Net Zero goal is very useful.  Peter says, “I've been working in innovation for sort of, for 20 years, in the water in industry, and a lot of the innovation, if I reflect back has been that incremental, you know, finding more efficient ways saving on chemical and energy. But but but absolutely just, you know, just small, incremental improvements, this is completely different. This is about, you know, paradigm shifts, really doing something very different. And therefore, you know, taking on much more risk.” (Transcription by Otter.)

In Pete's telling, this has shifted the companies, their trade body and also the regulator.


QUESTION TIMINGS
Normally I would put the timings of each question (see list here). But our conversation ranged widely, and not in a linear way. All the questions are answered, just not in an order which makes it useful to highlight them here!

This is part of a series of interviews about innovation for sustainability conducted for the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources, as a contribution to a module in this Masters. You can find out more about these interviews, and the module, here.

Transcript

Thu, 2/3 11:09AM • 48:05

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

innovation, processes, programme, river, trent, carbon, target, wastewater, water, bit, energy, important, industry, ammonia, treatment, business, scope, sustainability, regulator, years

SPEAKERS

David Bent-Hazelwood, Pete Vale

David Bent-Hazelwood  00:11

Hello, this is one of several interviews on innovation, business and sustainability for the students studying the MSc in sustainable resources at UCL. My name is David bent, and I'm an honorary lecturer at the UCL Institute for Sustainable resources. And I'm co lead for the module on eco innovation and sustainable entrepreneurship. Most of the course gives people the latest academic theory, insights and research results. And these 30 minute interviews are with practitioners to give some of the grit under the fingernails of innovating for sustainability today, delighted to say we are joined by Pete vail of seven trends. So into our first question. So Pete, 

QUESTION 1. what is your role? And what is your organisation do?

Pete Vale  00:52

I need David, and Hello all. So yes, my role is a relatively new role. Actually, for me, I've worked in innovation for a very long time for sort of 20 odd years and seven trends, but I now have been given a really clear focus on carbon and the circular economy. So my formal title is the carbon and circular economy architect in in some trends in the innovation team.

David Bent-Hazelwood  01:23

And so it's worth unpacking that. Particularly, there's a new role architects. Yes. Why is that in there? What does that mean?

Pete Vale  01:32

Yes. So yeah, good question. And it's one of those Marma that some people really love. And some people think that's odd. What does that mean? I like it. 

So it's come about really, because in seven trent, we've merged our more conventional sort of operational innovation, if you like, you know, innovating technologies and processes with digital innovation. And now in our innovation team, which is asset intelligence and innovation, we have both the operational innovation architects and the digital architects. And yeah, the architect term is well used in AI, information technology and the digital world. And what it really means in the context of innovation is we innovation architects are there to design the innovation programme. 

So we're if you like, managing the front end of the innovation process, this is how we structured in seven Trent. So we are going out scouting the world for for new technologies, new developments, seeing how they line up against our innovation needs, our business needs practice, short, medium and long term, and then structuring an innovation programme. And once we have the innovation projects that have identified and validated and tested and very importantly funded, and then handed over to the delivery teams to actually run the projects,

David Bent-Hazelwood  03:12

right, I think we'll we'll unpack some of that as we go through. But what I realised is we probably we've not quite explained what seven trent so first off, what is it for

Pete Vale  03:23

So yes, so Sevren Trent is one of the 10 large water and wastewater utility companies in in the UK. And we are a private company. So we're a listed footsie 100 company, but of course we're a monopoly. So we are very heavily regulated by OfWat. So yeah, we operate in in a fairly unique position, certainly unique in terms of how the water sector seems to operate internationally, where generally it's, you know, municipal, municipalities or public owned. We are private, but then regulated.

David Bent-Hazelwood  04:09

Yeah. And seven trent you cover sort of the middle of England. Is that correct?

04:13

Yeah. We're sort of centred in a west so I'm in Coventry today. So commentary Birmingham right in the heart of the of the region, but we go because we are struck should almost on on water basins. Name is comes from the river seven and the river Trent there are two large sort of catchment. So we cover right up to where the Trent discharges into the Humber estuary, so in the northeast, right up to Scunthorpe, and then down in the southwest pretty much where the yeah right down to the seven estuary so as down as far as Gloucester and then we also ate through it's the Midlands, but we also have a sister company operating in mid Northwest else could have to do.

David Bent-Hazelwood  05:04

And water and wastewater means you're responsible for getting clean water to people's homes and people's factories, and then taking away the wastewater into the sewage works being treated, and discharged into rivers or whatever. And you also have to cope with it cope a bit prejudiced on this, but also have the runoff from the fields of people's farms and so on. So this, this is what the remit is, and there must be several million households that you're covering with

Pete Vale  05:32

it. That's right. So, we serve about just over 8 million customers, something like for I think, four and a half million properties, and as you rightly point out, not just domestic properties, but we supply commercial premises, and just your premises to take the wastewater from domestic properties, but also trade effluence from into the sewer, from from from commercial, and industrial. And, yeah, and and, and we cover all aspects of the water cycle. 

So from Source to Tap, and tap to river. So we manage the water resources, the reservoirs, we manage the clean water network to get the well the raw water network to get the water to our trick water treatment works. And then the the the network to get the treated water to people's homes. And then again, as you rightly point out, we then take that wastewater we own the sewage sewerage network, the pumping stations, etc. We have the wastewater treatment plants, and then we discharge to the to the environment. And then the the sludge that's produced through the wastewater treatment process, we treat that and an increasingly large part of our operation is generating renewable energy from from the sludge that we produce, and but also from wind and solar, wind, and hydro. And yeah, and we manage the return of the treated sludge to to land to the environment as well.

David Bent-Hazelwood  07:24

So a big and important remit for sustainable resources. Let's move on to the second question, which you started to answer before. And this gives us a chance to unpack some of the terms you had around architects because it's about the role of your function in the organisation. So you said that your role was to go and find useful innovations that are happening elsewhere in the world that can match with business needs, and to bring them inside the organisation and then hand them over to a delivery team. So design innovation programme, and then handed over to a delivery team. So that was my take what you just said. So first mix.

Pete Vale  08:04

Yes, very good. Yeah.

David Bent-Hazelwood  08:06

And then I guess the next thing is, well, how do those things get set to have, you know, what the business needs? Are? How do you know where to look? What what do you get up to?

Pete Vale  08:15

Yeah, no, it's a really good point. And it's, it's a bit of the job that I find absolutely fascinating, you know, looking so because it's there are there are other shorter term business needs. So we mentioned that we're a regulated business. So every five years, we have a we have to prepare a business plan, essentially that that sets out what we're going to deliver over the next five years in response to for example, a national environmental programme, so the Environment Agency will work with them and we'll come up with right we need to upgrade a sewage treatment works because the population has increased because it needs money spending on capital maintenance, or and or because the river now requires us to remove more ammonia or more phosphorus. So we have for just

David Bent-Hazelwood  09:12

for people to make the correction. Ammonia and phosphorus would typically be a runoff from fertiliser on our farm.

Pete Vale  09:19

And but it is also in in sewage itself. So we excrete ammonia in urea, for example. And yeah, well, I'm sure we'll come back to that because because that's fascinating. So So to some extent, they're pollutants. Ammonia is certainly toxic to fish in the aquatic environment. Phosphorus isn't toxic, it is a nutrient but in but at the wrong concentration in the wrong place. It's it's promoting excessive algal growth and plant growth in rivers causes dissolved oxygen declines etc. So in some senses, we need to we need to remove it But there's also a huge potential because it's a valuable resource. And I'm sure we'll come back to this, but, and I'm jumping around a bit. 

But when it comes to the more longer term strategic stuff, it's how we move, say, from the traditional linear energy intensive treatment processes to more, you know, circular processes where we're harnessing resource that's in wastewater. But we'll come back to that. So just to, so we were talking about, yeah, how to understand the business needs. 

So you've got shorter term needs. So we've made a commitment to, to upgrade, X kilometres of stretch of river, or we need to reduce leakage in our clean water networks. How can we help the business reduce leakage by 15%? In the most economical way? So are there clever techniques for us to spot leaks and fix leaks? As an obvious example, and the business, you know, we need to be close to the operational teams in the business to understand the pressures they're facing. So generally, you're trying to write there's a limited budget, we need to hit certain performance targets, how can we help you do that? 

There's more medium term needs. So forecasting ahead, the next five years, what's coming down the track. So for example, I've done a lot of work over the last five or 10 years on Phosphorus Removal. To go back to that as an example, we used to have to remove phosphorus to about one milligramme per litre in wastewater, according to the urban wastewater treatment directive, the Water Framework Directive came down the track and said, actually, you know, the the river is now needs to be classified. And we need you to meet good status to meet good status often required us to get much, much lower phosphorus levels. So it's sort of understanding that's coming down the track, and then said, okay, so what technologies would allow us to meet point one milligramme per litre phosphorus in the most cost effective, but robust way. So. So about three or four years ago, I was involved in sort of specifying and building a big sort of trial programme to test various technologies. So that's, I guess, an example of the more medium term stuff, looking ahead to what's you know, what's coming two or three years down the track. 

And then because my focus is carbon, and the water industry in England, has made a commitment to be net zero, in terms of operational carbon by 2030? Or how, you know, that's a that's, that's occupying a lot of time. So that's, I suppose, yeah, we need to develop a strategy around low carbon. But for me, it goes absolutely hand in hand with the circular economy. And, you know, it's not just about reducing direct process emissions. Okay. Albeit, that's really important. But it's looking at those other opportunities as well and looking at it in the round. So yeah, that more sort of strategic stuff. So you know, how, what's what are what, what's academia really sort of focused on in terms of so to give you an example on that, I've been working probably for about 10 years with Cranfield University, on switching away from really intensive aerobic treatment processes that use a lot of energy to anaerobic processes that use a lot less energy and allow us to recover more resource. Sorry, that was a long answer.

David Bent-Hazelwood  13:54

We've covered most of different things. But there's, there's the core of your function, which is responding to the business needs, helping the business to develop and understand its needs. And they're looking around the world both in academia for I guess, that's more r&d things, which are in development, and also presumably looking at other water companies for what they're implementing. 

So those are things which are out of development in into real life. Yeah, trying to match those things up. Yeah. And there's different timescales, some of which have short, medium long, some of which are determined by the way you're regulated, which gives this sort of five year cycle, which I do want to come back to, but we're just trying to keep to my questions a little bit, that we will jump around. So you mentioned there's a carbon measure target for 2030. 

QUESTION 3. My next question was about how is sustainability framed in the organisation is it issue by issue that is there is given to you by the regulator, how is it how is this how is it framed?

Pete Vale  14:56

Yes, yeah, fantastic question and I'm really interested in actually. So. So, so, actually in the net zero target, that we set ourselves as a sector was obviously responding to, you know, broader targets, government targets about net zero by, by by 2050. 

And, and, you know, the general recognition that we operate, you know, in the environmental sector, we are stewards of the environment, it's absolutely vital to us as an industry that we protect our resource, not only because it's the right thing to do, but, you know, if we're taking water from the environment, clearly, it's in our interests to have a very healthy, healthy environment. 

And so it's almost, you know, it makes perfect business sense for us to be really focused on environmental leadership sustainability. However, that net zero target wasn't set by the regulator, and that has caused some interesting discussion around what that target should be around a weave. So water UK, which represents the industry produced a net zero roadmap. And, and and we, as a collective of companies signed up to this public interest commitment to be net zero operationally, but there is an ongoing debate about what that includes and what that exclude. So should it include squat because scope three emissions, for example, what supply chain are, are generating what you mentioned, sort of still and what happened and when the effluent goes into the river, what then what happens further downstream, when it's outside our operational boundaries, and then there's costs as well as embedded carbon. So there's the capital carbon associated with our, with our infrastructure. And so we're still sort of in unpicking that to a degree and what we've said some training is, so there is this 2030 target, which is around operational carbon scope one and scope two. But absolutely, we're not forgetting the bigger picture scope three. And we've signed up to science based targets. And we're looking at you know, biogenic carbon emissions, as well as so things that currently aren't reported. 

Because, you know, it's important for us to do that. And plus, I personally are, I'm absolutely a firm believer that we shouldn't have this carbon tunnel vision, just just focus on carbon emissions, because sustainability. You know, it covers a huge area, doesn't it? We've talked about the environment. So you know, eutrophication, overconsumption. So that's got to be in there biodiversity. We also have biodiversity targets. And then there's, I suppose the more social side, as well as sort of inequality and health and education and all that that needs to be borne in mind when you're sort of working through your, your, your sustainability strategy.

David Bent-Hazelwood  18:25

So let's just make sure that our listeners and viewers, we can unpack some of the specific terms there. So scope one and two emissions are about your own operational emissions. They're what you produce on site, and also what's produced to create the energy, particularly electricity that you need by the interest to generate. 

So that's scope one and two. And then scope three is what is created in terms of emissions in order to supply you, or by your customers, because they use your product. That's the rough way of describing it. And so everyone, your scope three is somebody else's scope, one and two. So there's there's all of that. So there's a lot of potential double counting on it. And there was a protocol. And I guess there's one thing that the second thing I wanted to just test was, so you signed up to net zero by 2030. On square one and two, yes. 

And you have a roadmap, which was agreed collaboratively across the whole water, UK water industry. And that roadmap, you don't quite know how you're going to deliver that roadmap.

Pete Vale  19:36

So there's certainly uncertainty so

David Bent-Hazelwood  19:39

you made the commitment without knowing that it was possible. Well,

Pete Vale  19:43

I mean, that's yeah, I I suppose Yes, there is that. Set a target to drive the innovation to ensure that we get so I almost view it as a So a term I think that's used is mission based sort of r&d based innovation, where it's really actually quite helpful to have a firm target and a firm date in mind. I think classic example, isn't it is the sort of moon landings, where we will do this by I can't remember the date, I should I should do that.

David Bent-Hazelwood  20:19

Within 10 years will land a man on the moon JFK? Yeah, yeah.

Pete Vale  20:22

So I think that's a large part of it. So you're right, you don't know the detail of how you're going to get there. But you make a firm commitment, this is what we're going to do. 

And then that helps really, if you're working in innovation, really sort of focusing on 

Okay, so we first need to understand our baseline. And that's not as easy as it sounds, actually. So some things that, you know, scope to is relatively straightforward. We know how much energy we use, we know how much diesel we're using, how much natural gas etc. 

So you can work out all that. And you can come up with a strategy, like we have to say, right, by 2030, our fleet, or at least our car fleet, our Van Fleet will be battery electric vehicles, yes, bit more challenge, which with the HGTV, and, you know, options around by methane and hydrogen. And but, but you know, what pretty firm strategy that you come up with. And of course, we want to say, of course, it's not obvious, but we generate a lot of our self supply a lot of our energy already. So through anaerobic digestion, largely, about 50% of the energy we use, seven trend is self generated. So that's a great start. But then, of course, we can buy, you know, the rest of the energy we need, we buy renewable energy. Far more, far more difficult is the process emissions, because it's still not really understood. So nitrous oxide from our treatment processes, extremely potent greenhouse gas, about 300 times as potent as or three times the global warming potential of co2. We've only just in the last sort of year or so been monitoring that, and having a firmer idea of how much is produced. So the baseline to get to net zero, you know, we can't set right, it's, that's where we've got a much firmer figure now than we had two months ago, but that that's not completely set. 

And then as you say, You're you've it's, then you've got, we've got 1000 Sewage Treatment Works, our assets typically have, you know, a 50-60 year asset life. So, you know, they're a long time. And so to work out, what processes can reduce the carbon intensity, and then how you would do that across your asset base is quite complicated. And that's really what we're working through at the moment. So can we, you know, what can we do to reduce or eliminate nitrous oxide emissions from activated sludge plants? How can we capture more methane and use it? Can we produce sustainable materials that will offset carbon by recovering cellulose? For example, for wastewater? 

We've talked about ammonia already. Ammonia, you know, a lot of a significant portion of so I think it's two or 3%, something like that the world's energy is used to generate ammonia gets used in places you know, we can recover that from wastewater and then use it in fertiliser or even as an energy store. So by doing that, obviously, holistically you've got your your you're offsetting fossil fuel use and carbon emissions. But there's a bit of uncertainty around I'll how do we claim that carbon benefit in seven Trent? So yeah, a really complex picture.

David Bent-Hazelwood  23:46

And one, a complex picture where the industry and your company committed with knowing it was important for me that I'm having a broad roadmap or without knowing every step of the way, right. I think that's an appetite for risk, which is really interesting. T

here's one thing I wanted to reinforce something you said towards the start of answer, which was about the importance of targets, I think my own experience is that having a zero as part of the target makes a big difference, because then incremental improvements aren't really gonna cut it. And I think with with net zero, it's, it's good to think of it as zero brackets, and net. Because if everybody thinks that they're going to be able to have residual emissions and then offset the rest, then there's going to be a huge over roll over demand for offsetting, which is really more than we can really cope with. So everyone needs spending for aiming for zero. And aiming for zero means you can't just stick with percent like 2% improvements every year on whatever it is you have as well. So that is not just a strong target or sorry, not just a strong deadline, but also that this Credit evolved in the target record induces a deeper look and a deeper level of innovation.

Pete Vale 25:06

I agree completely. And I think is, even though as I mentioned at the outset that I've been working in innovation for sort of, for 20 years, in the water in industry, and a lot of the innovation, if I reflect back has been that incremental, you know, finding more efficient ways saving on chemical and energy. But but but absolutely just, you know, just small, incremental improvements, this is completely different. This is about, you know, paradigm shifts, really doing something very different. And therefore, you know, taking on much more risk.

David Bent-Hazelwood  25:45

Yeah. So we've moved around our questions, but that's fine, I think would be interesting now, because you are such a heavily regulated industry. And that does make a difference. And you said, You've been in the innovation world of water for 20 years? I mean, I'm interested in how has the, the way in which the regulator works with you changed across this 20 years? And how that affects the the innovation you're trying to do? Does it? Are they enabling you? Are they constraining you? What's the pressure that you get for regulators? And how does it filter into the innovation programmes you're trying to do?

Pete Vale  26:22

Yeah, so I should start off by saying that, you know, the regulator has a very important job to do. And it's sometimes easy to forget, you know, they are the role of that regulator is to ensure that we are we run our businesses very efficiently to protect customers. So to keep bills, affordable, alone,

David Bent-Hazelwood  26:40

we can't rely on competition to keep prices down. 

Pete Vale  26:45

Exactly. Let's get that clear at the outset, but but I think it's true to say, you know, when I when I again, reflect back to a to a degree at least innovating was was was quite difficult sort of 510 years ago, in that the way the regulatory model was set up, was such that you would get the benefit. 

So if so, if I if we as a water company, several Trent found a very clever way of operating our treatment plants that reduced energy by 10%, or meant we didn't need chemical A, for example, we would get that benefit for the the amp period and the app that the amp period, the asset management plan is a five year investment period. 

So at the start of that five year period, we effectively that's the price control, that's how much we could raise bills by over that five year period, at the end of that period, it was almost like everything to reset. And because you're sort of benchmarked about how efficient you were, that that sort of benefit you got ceased to it to a large degree. So it made it I probably meant that you took less risk, because the benefit was to the cat if you like, yeah, that's definitely changing. 

And so and the appetite in so and so, I guess the other thing to say is so often what now are very much encouraging innovation and recognising that innovation is essential for us to as a sector. And because we are we are viewed with some good reason of being a bit sort of water, you know, particularly drinking water, you don't want us to take risks rarely do you know, there are good reasons for being, you know, a bit conservative. So, but but pretty, but equally, you know, we probably are be a bit slow moving and conservative and risk averse. But with things like the the netzero challenge, you know, we can't continue to operate that way. 

So as an example of have now operate a 200 million pound innovation fund that operates over that five year period, it's a competition. So you bid into that. You You are encouraged to collaborate. So that's another really interesting area, perhaps in the past with the privatise model that we had we and the way we were regulated it was you know, Water Company A is is more efficient than Water Company B. 

So it will be incentivized and those less efficient or be penalised, so, there was, you know, wasn't competitive in that sense so you were unwilling to share you know, I found some great innovation. What Why would I share that with Tanzania, United Utilities and Yorkshire etc. But now there is recognition that one, it's really inefficient way of innovating. If I'm doing a bit of I'm spending a million pound on an innovation project Yorkshire water are doing exactly the same as our 10 To Northumbria for example. So how do we as a sector become much more efficient innovators, and so off what are encouraging this collaborative innovation? 

So we are working together, putting proposals into this competition. And then I'm working more much more as a as a sector, which I think's great. And definitely complements more our sort of open innovation strategy. So we touched, and we can come sorry, stop me. And we can come back to this. We want to talk about it. But I was just going to go on a bit to explain a bit more than sort of ecosystem, the innovation ecosystem. Yeah, great. So. So working with other water companies is really important. And something we're doing now more than we have historically in the past. But, of course, that's just a pretty small part of the overall ecosystem. I've talked about universities, that's really important. 

So we in the past have had strategic partnerships with universities where people have actually been embedded in seven Trent as a sort of a gateway, if you like to their organisation. So we've got early sight of, you know, earlier stage, research, technology development. I mentioned anaerobic treatment, that's a good example of that. Then there's a technology providers. So we need to be receptive to their sort of new new ideas and innovations. And again, I think if you ask them, they probably would say, we've been a bit of a tough customer, and haven't really been receptive. So we're trying to get much better at that and provide sort of easier routes for them to come in and work with us to develop their technologies for us to implement their technologies

David Bent-Hazelwood  31:48

to see what kinds of things are we talking about? We're talking about the water treatment technologies, the chemicals, all of that, or are we talking about the digital side? Because you mentioned that? I do.

Pete Vale  32:00

So both, and, and including so yeah, and business processes as well, and how we interact with our customers. So right across Miami, my most of my experience has been in the sort of what I call operational technology. So yeah, the treatment processes. But increasingly, digital is really important. So in the innovation team in seven, Trent now we are asset intelligence and innovation. So I think I said this earlier. So we have both digital innovators, and technology innovators, if you like working together, because the two things are so intertwined. Now, you know, digital twins and all that good stuff.

David Bent-Hazelwood  32:44

And just in case people listening, don't know digital twin is where you create a model digital model of a real asset. And you can see how it is responding. And you can make predictions about when you need to do maintenance, when you might need to replace it where the stresses might be. So the digital twin allows you to be much quicker and more accurate on those different sort of functions.

Pete Vale  33:07

Absolutely. Yeah. The International elements, I think, really a big growth area. So we we

David Bent-Hazelwood  33:16

see innovation ecosystems, jumping around with your suppliers. And yeah. And the other ones companies, but then now into the international arena.

Pete Vale  33:25

Yeah, so I'm sorry. Question. Yeah. Can I just two seconds.

David Bent-Hazelwood  33:35

Just so you were just about to talk about your innovation ecosystem on the international arena.

Pete Vale  33:42

Yes, thanks. Thanks. So yeah, we've for about the last two or three years we've set up, we were one of the founding members of what's called the World Water Innovation Forum. And that's really knowledge sharing. Forum. So there are utilities right across the world. North America, South America, Singapore, Australia, Israel, Europe. NATS that's a great way of 

So you find that say Singapore that fantastic on leakage reduction. And so we can learn a lot from them. But equally, then we might be doing things on search treatment, that we are sort of in, you know, global leaders in and so being able to sort of share that knowledge and get it allows us to sort of accelerate our sort of innovation programme and get up to speed in areas where maybe we weren't so knowledgeable. external funding has proved as has been really important to us over the last few years. 

So things like the horizon 2020 programme, which is now horizon, Europe. So both both in terms of actually getting external funding in To reduce the risk of doing larger scale demonstrators, but also being able to access, you know, the expertise in universities across Europe, and technology providers. So we're working now with a Dutch company who were partners of ours in the European project. We're now working directly with them on cellulose recovery. But other sectors, as well, of course, you know, with, you know, chemical industry, aerospace know that there are Petrochem 

Yeah, really good example of so as let me give you an example. So, get back to process emissions, you know, we, we need to detect what we're emitting. I mentioned that, you know, we're still learning. So how to monitor for me fat emissions, things that have been done for years in Petra Can we can we can, we can pick that up. And very recently, actually, we've we've just started an initiative where we're using technology scouts that are based in in different areas of the world, the first one is in the Nordics. 

So working with a consultant, see who, but that person is effectively working full time to seven Trent covering a specific region, we catch up with them weekly, and we'll go out and see them probably quarterly, and get all that sort of that all those nuggets of what's been done same Finland or Denmark on on, and we give them targeted, right, I really want you to focus on process submissions, that's, that's really important to us for this next sort of month, or whatever it is.

David Bent-Hazelwood  36:44

And I think the thing to take away from all that, there's one thing which is the sheer volume of activity, but it's also you're assembling an ecosystem around yourself, which can really support the delivery of the innovations you need, some of which are technological, some of which are also techniques, and some of which also about how even to think about what the challenges which is where the circular economy, stuff comes in. So I've just two more questions, I'd like to ask you one specific so. 

And it's about nature based solutions, circular economy, and sort of this notion that nature's been cleaning water for billions of years, and fixing carbon for billions of years. And the history of the water industry is a building big kit, often with cement, and then using lots of energy to clean water. I mean, how much is there a desire to move towards nature based solutions and to and to think in terms of the runoff from farm, like how upstream you can get in the province to avoid there being a need to clean the water in the first place?

Pete Vale  37:56

Yeah, so it's a really, really good point and an interesting area. So yeah, absolutely. Right. So even with our sort of concrete, capital intensive solutions, we're still actually replicating and maybe intensifying what goes on in the environment. So you're absolutely you know, we use biology, we use bacteria to, to, to clean wastewater, and they're the same bacteria that are in the rivers, where they're just, you know, you're right, the traditional solution is let's intensify that by building the concrete tank, growing the bacteria, increasing the population density. And in order to do that, we need to pump air into there, and we need chemical so that they separate out effectively. And that is one way of doing it. And, but but you're right nature based solutions definitely are a really attractive proposition. 

Particularly I think, for the sort of smaller, smaller sort of rural works. The issue with them is they take up a lot of land, but about seven or eight years ago, and we did a sort of a strategic better work where we were effectively scenario planning and trying to work out well, what what are the emerging trends? And what do we need to be doing now to sort of put ourselves in a good place to, you know, least regret solutions. And we and we thought, well, actually, what we've got two rather distinct treatment works, we have the big urban works. Min worth in Birmingham serves nearly 2 million people. It's a really, really big site, and that's using intensive technology. If you wanted to use a nature based solution there, it would be fast, probably not realistic. 

However, we have 1000s of his treatment works and probably 600 of those are quite small. And we've used reedbeds constructed wetlands for a long time. As tertiary treatment processes on those works, but is there an opportunity to do a lot more using nature based solutions? And I think the answer is definitely yes. And forms a key component of our treatment strategy. So we are we working with rivers, various rivers trusts, and we're looking at wetland systems, pond systems reedbed systems to see, yeah, if we can get to them to work. 

And there are challenges. So there's undoubted big benefit, biodiversity benefit, probably a carbon benefit, but we need to work that through. So there's still some uncertainty around are they a carbon sink? Or do we actually emit carbon? Or probably both? Is the truth depending on the season? But, yeah, and then more? And then equally importantly, can they treat the wastewater to the standard that we need them to robustly? And if not, so if there are periods of maybe in the winter, where it's a struggle to meet? Is it the right consent? Is it the right permit? Should we be working with the Environment Agency to work out holistically the best option? 

So yes, I'd say there's big scope for for nature based solutions, we need to do more work in that area. But we're absolutely committed to do it. 

The point you make equally valid, good point you make about catchment stuff. So let's not fixate on end of pipe solutions here. Because that's, you know, almost always, you know, you, you, you you add cost and complexity by doing that, you're always going to need to do it in some instances. But if we flip to drinking water, can we work in the catchment with our farmers and say, Please don't use Mattel to hide slip pellets. Because if you do that, you'll get some of that ending up in the river is really difficult to remove in our water treatment processes. 

So if we work with you, we can subsidise the use of different pesticides that don't have an impact or even better, you know, farming techniques that don't don't need pesticides, or we can we can use sort of strips of you know, wildlife corridors and all that sort of all those things together to make it a much more sustainable catchment, sensitive sort of farming practice. And so we have a catchment team who have that relationship ongoing with the farmers and manage it that way. And I think that's going to become more and more important. And we can work with farmers around nutrients as well. So how do we work together to reduce the input of nitrate and phosphate into the river? So yeah, really, really important. I

David Bent-Hazelwood  42:56

think the two things I'd pull out from that excellent answer is, firstly, I mean, I did a little bit of work with other water utilities about 20 years ago and 10 years ago. And I think it's fair to say my experience, then when I mentioned nature based solutions was far less positive that your answer. So I think there's, there's been a sort of sea change in the industry and an acceptance about that shift, which is just one of the things we're talking about in the course, is levels of innovation from product down to, like the ecosystem and the the mindset, really, so there's a there's a, there's a mindset shift there, which I can experience in your answer. 

And then I think the second thing is, as the sustainability challenges get larger, and more fundamental, the distinction between industries fades away, because especially for utility or water utility, which receives everyone else's waste, because of the water. What are the industries get up to is a really big concern to you. And so collaborating across industries, so that the upstream industries aren't causing a problem for you are removing and helping them to avoid their externality, which you're having to pick up the cost of, and your customers having to pick up the cost of is actually, that convergence is likely to increase as we have to head towards zero. So just wanted to pull out those two things.

QUESTION 8. My last question is really, part of the course is around policy. Is there one thing policymakers could do which would make things significantly easier for you?

Pete Vale  44:38

So I think this is in some ways a bit I guess a bit of a technical answer, but but but it's very, very relevant. A lot of the work that I'm doing at the moment goes back to the circular economy and and the point you were making about us being receivers of waste, receivers of waste, but receivers of material that's classed as waste, and yet has significant inherent value being that that being clean water, first and foremost, but also energy huge amounts of energy in wastewater, and material. So things like I talked about cellulose, which comes from the toilet paper that we can recover nitrogen phosphorus, we can get bioplastics, you know, bit further off bit less developed, but things like bio plastics, enzymes, loads of stuff that we can that we can recover from, from from wastewater, that has a much lower carbon footprint than the the conventional virgin material. However, there's huge challenge around the classification of that material. So end of waste. So very difficult for us to to to get a viable business case, on recovering material, if it still seems a waste.

David Bent-Hazelwood  46:05

And the toxic waste? I mean, the presumption being that it can't the regulations assume that it can't have any other use. I'm assuming that problem.

Pete Vale  46:14

Yeah. So so it's understandably, you know, a very sort of cautionary approach. So even when we can demonstrate that the product has equal value to the, you know, to the to the material has no substances in the off concern, and, you know, there are there are we, there are processes and, and procedures that we can go down to sort of get all that evidence, it's still a really cumbersome, long drawn out process, to get finally, to end of waste. If we if we could streamline that, and work with the sort of policymakers and regulators, and they get it a lot. And this is, you know, this is active conversations going on at the moment, but I would love to see us, between us as industry, as policymakers, as regulators, and just have more aligned, joined up approach, we all want the same thing, but just to allow us to really, then, you know, move to a much more circular way of doing things. Great. That's fine, my

David Bent-Hazelwood  47:25

wonderful, well, we've blown well past the 30 minutes, but that's because you're saying such really interesting things about how the innovation is organised within seven trend, how the regulatory context really affects that and the different ways you're trying to respond, especially by creating an ecosystem that supports the innovations you're trying to do. So I want to say a massive thank you Pete for sharing all that you have so far. All the good in our conversation, and wishing good luck for the rest of your day.

Pete Vale  47:55

Thanks, David. A real pleasure and yes, good luck to you all along the on the MSC. Thank you. Thank you