Why is biodiversity important to us?

The way in which we manage water and wastewater can have a big impact on biodiversity and on the wider environment. We plan our work carefully in order to protect biodiversity across our region and beyond.

We can affect biodiversity in many ways - and biodiversity can also affect us. For example:

• We own reservoirs, grassland, woodland and many other sites that have local, national and international biodiversity interest - some sites are also legally protected. We need to ensure we fully consider this in our planning and operations.
• We can affect protected species when we work outside our sites too - for example, when building new water pipelines or sewers in the countryside. The presence of protected species or habitats can influence where or how we work, or affect the time of year we can carry out certain construction or operational activities.
• Biodiversity is a good indicator of water quality - for example, healthy rivers tend to support a wider variety of species including plants, insects, fish and mammals.
• Invasive or non-native species can damage our sites, affect our operations or threaten native wildlife. These include plants like Japanese knotweed, giant hogweed and New Zealand Pigmyweed. We need to identify and control these species on our own sites or where we are carrying out capital projects.
• The way we manage our business can affect biodiversity beyond London and the Thames Valley - by reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, for example, we can reduce our impact on climate change and help protect global biodiversity.
• From working with hundreds of customers and stakeholders when developing our company Business Plan and 25-year strategy, we know that protecting the natural environment is very important to our customers and stakeholders as well. It is also core to our approach to being a sustainable business.

In addition, like all public bodies and statutory undertakers we have a formal duty to protect biodiversity.