Water impacts have cost businesses over $2.5 billion this year, and over two thirds of companies say their business is exposed to substantive risks in the future.

Ofwat Chief Executive Cathryn Ross has flagged up the need for to find ways of driving more market testing of significant new infrastructure - and creating scope for this to be provided not by existing water companies but by others, if they can do it more efficiently. 

In an Expert Focus interview for Waterbriefing, Steve Morris, Managing Director of Huber Technology, waste water treatment solutions specialists who work with all the main UK water companies and their contractors and delivery partners, talks to Elaine Coles, Managing Editor at Waterbriefing about how continuous innovation in an established product sets it apart from the competition.

Ofwat has said it sees “big opportunities” in the upstream value chain, in particular for water resources and sludge, which are not being utilised right now - but is not convinced that "water companies always have the most efficient ways of doing things.”

Moody's is warning that the impact of reforms of UK water sector’s upstream activities, including water resourcing and sludge treatment and disposal, could potentially result in a “significant deterioration” in the credit quality of the water companies.