H2eco Phase 11
Essex & Suffolk Water (ESW) and Mouchel have undertaken the latest phase of the award winning H2eco study within the Grays and Corringham areas of Essex, continuing to promote, educate and deliver water efficiency to customers.
As a leader in the development of, and award winner in water efficiency within the UK, ESW has long term experience in water efficiency initiatives, many of which have been successfully delivered in partnership with Mouchel. All studies in the H2eco project suite promote domestic water savings using a combined approach of offering customers the latest water saving products and education about the importance of saving water. To achieve this Mouchel recruit and train staff to create an enthusiastic and motivated delivery team who actively engage and educate the customers recruited. This particular project is the eleventh phase of H2eco and builds on the experience and success achieved during previous phases. Each phase has been subtly different, and in phase 11 (through the application of collective lessons learnt) the project has achieved the target of 3,000 completed appointments and has maximised the savings attainable from these having seen an average Ofwat assumed saving of 57.7 litres per property per day (l/prop/day) and an actual measured reduction of 26.5 l/prop/day across properties where meter reads were attainable.
Phase 11 saw an unexpected deficit of interest from the initial targeted town of Grays, resulting in numerous reactive recruitment measures being implemented to ensure targets were attained. These measures included thousands of door to door canvas visits and most notably the inclusion and mailing of a new town, Corringham. It is not clear why the participation was lower than seen during previous phases, however it is clear from the results that had these measures not have been implemented, the project would not have reached its appointment target of 3,000 visits. H2eco phase 11 has maintained the high level of customer service feedback achieved in previous phases, attaining an outstanding 99.8% positive response rate for the helpful and courteous nature of plumbers and contact centre team, and an overall project satisfaction score of 99.1%. Phase 11 of H2eco incorporated further behavioural economics research that intends to help ESW understand what motivates people to participate in water efficiency projects and how best to engage customers to participate during future phases. The data collected needs to be analysed and these findings need to be considered and implemented during future phases to help ensure that participation is maximised across the areas that are targeted.