The 2021 Missive - Sustainability & Balancing the Cycle

I have instead been reflecting on what 2020 has taught us at Envireau Water. Well, for one we are still here and in a commercial position that will be better than some, and which gives us a secure basis for 2021. We would not be in that position without the support of the community around us; including our clients, our suppliers, regulators, associates and of course staff. But our community is wider than that, it covers the families that our staff support and who support them; our client’s staff and families; the people that our clients supply, support and interact with. All the links through this complex network are important in us being able to deliver the solutions for which we are renowned.

2020 has illustrated how, a small, specialist, niche consultancy interacts with its environment. From moving to more efficient offices; the use of web meetings and reduction in travelling; involvement in projects ranging from engineered wetlands for water treatment and quarry restoration, to stream restoration design post open cast mining; the past year has opened our eyes to, or probably allowed us to focus on, the three pillars of sustainability.

The economy, society, and the environment.

A couple of years ago I gave some presentations on ‘Balance’ and tried to get #ItsAllAboutBalance to gain some traction. At the time, the focus of my discussion was on balancing the water cycle. The emphasis being on balancing the needs or demands for water against the impact that abstraction has on the environment and other people. This can only be done if the water cycle is considered as a whole, if groundwater and surface water are considered conjunctively; if peak flows and flooding are linked to low flows and drought; if water quality and quantity are at the forefront of land managers minds. As I write this, the Great Ouse and Severn catchments are dealing with flooding and while I have not heard the word drought mentioned as a risk for 2021, I am sure it is being whispered somewhere. Why we cannot work towards a single, science based water resources and flood management agency in England I do not know, while leaving the Environment Agency to licence and control activities.

I focus on the water cycle because it is something that I know about, and I know how difficult it is to manage the balance. It is not a simple cycle, it has wheels within wheels, cogs turning cogs. Minor changes can have big effects, and somewhat counterintuitively big effects can on occasion have small impacts. However, our goal must be to understand as much of the cycle as we can, to recognise that the interactions are important and to develop decision making frameworks that can respond to the changes in understanding and the natural variations in those interactions. Flexibility is our friend, and fixed thinking or policy our nemesis.

Going back to sustainability, isn’t that a balancing act too? We are trying to balance the three pillars, across complex interactions and cycles. While this is undoubtedly difficult that doesn’t mean we don’t try, and don’t start somewhere.

In recognising and understanding the water cycle we can begin to see how Envireau Water as a business, together with its community, operates within the context of sustainability. We can do our bit to help balance the cycles and work towards a more sustainable future.

The ‘Brundtland’ definition of sustainable development: 'development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own’ is laudable but, I think, fails to emphasise the balancing act between social, economic and environmental resources.

Too many people see the term sustainability to indicate programs, initiatives and actions aimed at the preservation of a particular resource. When in fact it must refer to balancing of the three pillars.

2020 forced many people, either as individuals, families, professions or businesses, to review what they do and how they do it. Changes were both enforced and chosen, some were easy, and others were difficult. Some worked and others did not. But in all cases, we learned something, we built resilience and we pushed on. Looking back, I’m sure that all of us are in a different place from where we thought we would be, this time last year.

Taking that learning and resilience forward, if we apply a small test to our decision making in 2021 which goes along the line of ‘of the options in front of me which will be better in terms of sustainability’ and we take that option, where might we be in 12 months time?

To ask the question and to be able to answer it, means that we must learn something about sustainability and to bring meritorious words back to the scale of our life, family, job or business. That learning must centre on understanding the links in the cycles that we can influence and recognising that the overall objective is balance.

At Envireau Water we have always worked across a wide range of sectors solving a wide range of natural water challenges. What I think will change is the way we integrate sectors and clients by being even more imaginative in linking one person’s challenge with another person’s solution. For example, the use of quarry restoration more strategically as an environmental offsetting solution by optimising design for flood attenuation, or woodland development. Water course restoration across large landholdings to provide a public good, by creating habitat, improvements in water quality and to enable more secure abstraction. Linking housing and other developers to wider landholders to identify environmental net gain, for example by improvements in catchment scale flood risk management, as well as on site blue/green infrastructure connecting to the wider environment. These types of approaches require foresight and collaborative approaches, underpinned by sound science and engineering, coupled to forward thinking and pragmatic regulatory support. In different ways and at different times that is what Envireau Water has always done, and will continue to do with renewed vigour and in a new post Brexit, post virus era.

Ah, the weather for 2021 … cold first quarter (it is snowing as I type this); a cool and wet second quarter; a summer to warm the cockles of your heart; and then a wet and windy fourth quarter. Overall, like the last few years and on balance about average, but with a few extremes thrown in.

After 2020, I and everyone at Envireau Water hope that you have a more settled 2021; that you can do whatever it is that you would like to do; and that from a water related point of view, if you cannot that you give us a call – if for nothing more than to get the frustration off your chest.