Water & Wastewater Treatment

12 | SEPTEMBER 2015 | WWT | www.wwtonline.co.uk Industry leader Paul Horton, Chief Executive, Future Water Association "There needs to be greater awareness of the issues the sector faces, both now and looking forward 15 years." Interview by James Brockett W hile a rebrand which changes the name of an organisation can sometimes be merely a cosmetic exercise, at other times the new name can reveal a significant shi in the way it sees itself and its purpose. The latter is certainly the case for the Future Water Association, which has adopted its new moniker aer its previous incarnation as the Society of British Water and Wastewater Industries (SBWWi). The man responsible for the change is Paul Horton, who took over as CEO of the supply chain membership organisation in December last year. The rebrand - which was unveiled at the organisation's Water Innovation Forum event in Belfast on May 28th - followed a series of consultation exercises with its member companies, and has also yielded the three- pronged mission statement of "informing, innovating, influencing." The reason for the emphasis on future-gazing is a belief among members that the supply chain ought to be at the heart of any discussions about the sector's future needs and how innovative activity can help meet them. "I think there was a recognition that there needs to be greater awareness raised of the issues that the sector faces, both now and looking forward 10 or 15 years," Horton tells WWT. "We can raise that awareness not just by lobbying, but also getting involved in a discussion about those issues and what they mean for organisations in the sector, and for government policy, now and for future generations." The organisation already has a strong focus on innovation, through events such as 'Water Dragons' – an adapted version of the TV programme Dragon's Den - its publications, such as the 'Innovating for the Future' road map, and its member workshops. As the Future Water Association it will be extending this focus further. Barriers to innovation Its recent member engagement work has produced a set of what it sees as the key barriers to innovation, and it will be running workshops and training sessions linked to those barriers, as well as feeding the into discussions with regulators, government and others. "At its strategic level, to an extent, regulation has been a barrier: it's tended to drive capital expenditure, big infrastructure, rather than driving innovation," says Horton. "I don't just mean innovation with products, but new ways of doing things too. I don't want to be too critical of regulation as we are moving into a new 5-year period and there are lots of different things happening, but it hasn't driven the uptake of a lot of new ideas yet. "Other barriers are linked to the sources of funding that are available. You can get everything from small scale grants through to R&D tax credits, which is fine, but I think at a strategic level there needs to be better links with what research councils are doing, better links between

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