Overview

IChemE would like to invite members to a webinar discussion by Chris Thurston, Head of Sustainability for Watercare. Watercare provides integrated water and wastewater services to approximately 1.7 million people in the Auckland region.

Last year Watercare treated almost 455 million litres of drinking water each day at 15 water treatment plants, and distributed that water via 87 reservoirs and 95 pump stations to 450,000 households, hospitals, schools, and commercial and industrial properties. Watercare's wastewater network also collects, treats and disposes of wastewater at 18 treatment plants. The reticulation system includes more than 9,000 km of freshwater pipes and 7,900 km of sewers.

The New Zealand government is in the process of setting annual emissions budgets. The emissions trading scheme is ramping up the price of carbon and low carbon solutions are becoming an expectation. These actions are measured in a metric that will become common place – tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e).

Chris will provide an overview of where Watercare’s greenhouse gas emissions occur - from delivering water and wastewater services to Aucklanders everyday through to the infrastructure being built to support that population for the next 100 years. He will talk to some of the wins and the challenges Watercare are having as well as the quest to include tCO2e as a new metric to be used in decision making as New Zealand aims for net zero emissions.

After the presentation there will be time for questions or comments on how carbon emissions can be included in your work.

Time

17:00—18:00 NZST.