Water is the basis of all businesses, especially for a business like Sainsbury’s. Although our own operations represent a fraction of our total business water footprint, we are still exposed to water risks, which are intensifying in severity and frequency with the climate crisis. To address these water risks in our own operations, we have an ambitious target to reach water neutrality by 2040.
This year, we are piloting the Volumetric Water Benefit Accounting (VWBA – Replenish) methodology to support us in reaching water neutrality. Developed by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and other partners, this approach meets a critical need in corporate water stewardship action, providing a consistent and robust method for assessing the benefits of water stewardship, which enables water risks to be tackled collaboratively at catchment-scale.
The Wyre Catchment Natural Flood Management Project
The Wyre River catchment in North Lancashire have experienced a one-in-50-year flood event four times in the last 20 years, with the economic cost to insurers for this level of flooding being £1.96m. Significant flooding has had severe impacts on the community, flooding homes and destroying livelihoods.
Led by the Rivers Trust, the Wyre Rivers Trust, Triodos Bank UK, the Environment Agency, United Utilities, Flood Re, Co-Op Insurance and the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, The Wyre Catchment Natural Flood Management Project (Wyre NFM Project) aims to use nature-based solutions to store, slow and intercept flood water in our landscapes to prevent peak flow in order to reduce major flood risks in the Wyre River catchment area and Wyre communities.
Nature-based solutions are proven interventions to prevent flooding. The Wyre NFM Projects will use leaky barriers, bunded hedges and ponds to store water during periods of high rainfall and flooding, to allow the water overflow to pass through more safely. Woodland areas will also be created, which are effective at catching rainfall and allowing water to percolate through the soil into the ground.
The Wyre NFM Project will deliver more than 1,000 targeted measures to store, installed by the Wyre Rivers Trust and volunteers, working with farmers, the interventions will cover over 70 hectares, spread across more than 10 land holdings, and include:
- 39 hectares of woodland creation
- 1710 leaky dams
- 42 ponds and scrapes
- 10kmof new bunded hedgerows
We have purchased the Replenish volumes associated with these interventions, which will annually replenish the volumes of water that we use in this catchment area, and from as early as next year, our four stores in this catchment will be water neutral.
Click here to watch a showcase of the Project that was hosted by GFI Hive and goes into more detail on how it reached a stage of investment readiness.
For further information on this project, click here: Green Finance Institute