Water & Wastewater Treatment Magazine
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www.wwtonline.co.uk | WWT | JUNE 2018 | 19 In the Trade The Talk: interview W hether you are talking about eBay, Uber, or Airbnb, it's clear that technology-led businesses oen have the ability to bring buyers and sellers together in new efficient ways which can create a vibrant marketplace and disrupt the status quo. Although it is early days, this type of new player could be about to make its mark in the water sector in the form of EnTrade, the Wessex Water spin-out which links up potential sellers of envi- ronmental improvement measures, like farmers and land managers, with buyers of such services, including water compa- nies. The trading platform, which helps buyers to establish the market price for environmental interventions, has proved its worth through a pilot scheme in Wes- Wessex Water has recently spun out EnTrade – the trading platform it developed for environmental catchment interventions – into a separate business with national ambitions. Its new managing director, Guy Thompson, tells WWT about its potential Interview by James Brockett sex Water's Poole Harbour catchment, and is now poised to offer its services to other water companies and organisations with an environmental focus across the country. "The proof-of-concept pilot that Wessex Water established in the Poole catchment demonstrated the potential of environmental trading through a reverse auction process," says Guy Thompson, EnTrade's new Managing Director, who was appointed in February. "We are scal- ing up from that to a nationwide offering, and my appointment heralds the start gun on that process, if you like." The Poole Harbour pilot, which started in 2015, saw farmers paid at a market-de- termined rate to grow cover crops which stopped nitrate run-off into the water environment. Wessex negotiated with the Environment Agency, Natural England and Ofwat to offset 40 tonnes of nitrogen in this way rather than the alternative of building an additional treatment asset in Dorchester sewage works. With 147 bids received from 19 farmers, the first auction caught the imagination of agriculture in the region and meant that Wessex Water was able to meet its regulatory commit- ments on nitrogen at a cost that was 30% cheaper than previous catchment interventions, and a fraction of the price of the capital treatment solution. Subse- quent auctions have operated for a wider range of environmental actions – such as arable reversion – and the platform can be adapted for the reduction of other substances in catchments, for example, phosphorus or metaldehyde. EnTrade will provide a commercial service to Wessex Water's regulated busi- ness, and is also talking to several other water companies about the environmental goals in their PR19 business plans. Last summer it carried out a trial with United Utilities – also concentrating on nitrates – and a second project with the north west utility is expected. But this is just the start of EnTrade's ambitions, as Thompson explains. "Water companies are but one cus- tomer segment for us. We want to offer EnTrade as an environmental services