Hospitality and leisure

Protecting hospitality and leisure businesses with sustainable water management

Water is integral to all businesses, but in the hospitality and leisure sector, the impacts of flooding or supply interruptions are considerable and experienced immediately, affecting customer service, revenue and reputation.

Without water, your business would cease operations very quickly, either temporarily due to an unplanned water event, or permanently as a result of longer-term environmental factors.

By making your business operations more water-efficient, you are safeguarding your future water supply for operational resilience and growth, as well as protecting revenue, profitability, customer satisfaction and reputation.

Customer’s usage in this sector varies.
As an average per year:

Hotels use 5,500m3 of water

Restaurants use 2,500m3 of water

Pubs use 1,405m3 of water

Leisure sites use 17,300m3 of water

Common issues

Wasted water

Leaky taps and pipes waste 3,031 million litres of water in the UK every day. That’s 1,212 Olympic-sized swimming pools that companies are paying for unnecessarily.

Incorrect billing

A common issue our customers face is incorrect billing, which is costing companies substantially more financially. In 2022, we validated 46,550 of our customer’s bills, and of these we queried 688.

Unneccessary complexity

Being a highly customer centric sector, there is added complexity when trying to reduce water consumption, due to the amount of water being used not fully under your control and a lack of visibility around consumption patterns.

What we’ve helped clients achieve

By partnering with Waterscan and taking leadership on water management,
in 2022 our hospitality and leisure customers…

Received £708,268

In refunds, largely due to incorrect billing highlighted during our validation processes.

Saved £1,288,000

Through obtaining accurate and clear data, leak identification and early repairs.

Reduced by 370,000m3

Reduced water consumption by 370,000m3.

Customer testimonials

  • We are looking forward to building on this successful experience to date, which we believe delivers competitive advantage in both corporate social responsibility and commercial terms. We have seen reports of a slow customer response and questionable impacts of the open water market, but this has not been our experience. While self-supply was a leap into unchartered waters, it has delivered better than expected results in a short timeframe.

    Gavin Worthington

    Senior Purchasing Manager at Greene King

  • As we move forward with our sustainability strategy, we are pleased to be supported by Waterscan, whose approach echoes our own, to build on the success of our water efficiency programmes to date. We have already rolled out automated meter reading and water efficient equipment at the majority of our UK sites, but there is more that we can do to reduce our water impacts. We believe that a Self-Supply license will enable us to accelerate our work on reducing our water consumption, as witnessed in other industries.

    Lee Manley

    Sustainability Manager, David Lloyd Leisure

  • In financial terms, savings are around £400,000 saved each year by being a self-supplier in the marketplace, achieved by paying wholesale rather than retail rates. As retail prices rise, expectations are that this saving will continue to grow.

    Ross Greenhalgh

    Energy Manager, Whitbread plc

Latest hospitality and leisure industry insights

View all insights

Waterscan and Whitbread win sustainable use of water award

Waterscan and Whitbread win sustainable use of water award

Waterscan and long-term customer Whitbread were delighted to be jointly awarded the Footprint Drinks Awards Sustainable Use of Water Award 2021.

Water matters: Insights for the UK’s pub and restaurant sector

Water matters: Insights for the UK’s pub and restaurant sector

How long could your pub or restaurant operate without water? Chances are, after 30 minutes your onsite health & hygiene is deteriorating. A day and you’re struggling to serve customers. A week, your sites are closed, financial targets are impacted and your company reputation is at stake.

Water Matters: Insights for the UK’s leisure sector

Water Matters: Insights for the UK’s leisure sector

What would happen if your business lost access to water? The chances are, within 30 minutes your facilities would grind to a halt, customers would begin to vanish, and your reputation would be tarnished.

Tea at 3 event: Whitbread’s water journey

Tea at 3 event: Whitbread’s water journey

On 14th April 2021, Waterscan and Whitbread co-hosted a virtual Tea at 3 event. This was for a privately invited group of senior sustainability, procurement and utilities managers from across the UK’s hospitality, leisure, retail, manufacturing and transport sectors.

With water under control,
it’s time to make things happen.

Get in touch with one of our experts now.

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