Water

There was a 15.5 per cent fall in mains water use per tonne of product in 2017. This was due to the introduction of smart meters at 25 of our biggest water-using sites, allowing better management, along with a concerted drive to identify and repair leaks. We are now ahead of our 2020 target to reduce mains water use by 25 per cent based on 2010 figures and are very close to meeting a 10 per cent reduction in total water use in concrete. The use of controlled water rose slightly due to product mix, but total water use per tonne of product was down by 4.2 per cent.

Water consumption

	2010 (baseline)	2015	2016	2017
Mains water consumption – Litres per tonne	26.03	20.87	20.85	17.61
Mains water consumption – megalitres	890.0	853.2	855.4	713.7
Total water consumption – megalitres	9,384.3	7,320.3	8,581.0	8,121.3
Total water consumption – litres per tonne	274.44	179.08	209.16	200.40
Concrete total water consumption – litres per tonne	85.99	84.10	82.58	77.42

2016 total water has been corrected following a reporting error When normalised for production changes at business line level, the 2017 performance is 18.3 litres/tonne against a 2010 baseline of 24.7 litres /tonne, showing a reduction of 25.7%

Click here for data by business line

Target: Reduce mains water consumption by 25 per cent by 2020 based on 2010 baseline; reduce the sum of mains and abstracted water for concrete by 10 per cent by 2020 based on 2010 baseline.