Sprint Orange Water: Arcadis and Southern Water are Collaborating to Make New Gains in Water Efficiency

Target 100: Overcoming the Challenge of Water Scarcity in the South East

Following months of hard work and meticulous planning, Arcadis has hosted its first water-focused innovation and co-creation event. Taking place in the Arcadis’ Client Innovation Zone on Wednesday 5th and Thursday 6th September, Southern Water, Arcadis and a wide spectrum of participants collaborated to solve the challenge: “how can we motivate people to reduce their water consumption (without compromising their lifestyles)”.

The event was designed to support Southern Water in generating innovations that could help deliver against their Target 100 initiative, one of the 5 key transformational programmes underpinning their recently submitted AMP 7 business plan. This was an opportune moment to hold this event to demonstrate commitment to Target 100 and further enhance Southern Water’s reputation as an industry leader in water efficiency.

Target 100 is a highly ambitious water efficiency initiative that aims to reduce per capita consumption across the Southern Water network to 100 litres per day by 2040. The foundations for achieving this exacting target were laid in previous years by pioneering projects such as the Universal Metering Programme, resulting in the highest percentage of metered customers in the industry. However, Southern Water acknowledge a new approach is required to ensure they remain on track and demand is sustainably managed into the future. Arcadis’ tried and tested innovation process, Sprint Orange, was leveraged to generate innovations to maintain trajectory.

Sprint Orange: A new Approach to Problem-solving and Innovation

Arcadis developed Sprint Orange to provide a structured approach to problem solving that delivers results. The process is a combination of Design Thinking, a human-centred design process for innovation where empathy for those the design is made for is at the core, and the Design Sprint, a process for rapidly working to solve complex issues with an ecosystem of partners.

Sprint Orange is split into two distinct but related two-day ‘sprints’ of activity. The first is about understanding the challenge, empathising with the end-user and generating ideas: this is what our team were doing during this event. The second is about prototyping, validating and articulating the solution. There is a real emphasis on understanding the nuances of the problem and developing solutions that really work: this is what drives the whole process forward and makes it a success!

We followed a clear structure, enabling us to be creative, open-minded and not get stuck in one place. I particularly enjoyed the use of techniques such as defining the kites (things that help solve the problem) and anchors (things that hinder solving the problem). The human-centric process enabled us to stand in the shoes of the customer and focus on the attitudes and behaviours we want to change.

Gerard Harkin, Interim Head of R&D at Southern Water and Ben Earl, Water Efficiency Manager at Southern Water, share their views on Sprint Orange:

“It was an excellent 'Sprint Orange' and time well spent! High energy, leading-edge methodologies, the right mix of perspectives in the room, and great ideas and solution concepts. Many thanks to the Arcadis team.”

Gerard Harkin, Interim Head of Bluewave at Southern Water

“Our Target 100 strategy is the most ambitious water efficiency plan in the industry and collaboration with multiple partners at every stage and involving every technology is at its heart. Working with Arcadis on a dedicated ‘Sprint Orange’ has been a really incisive and positive initiative and is helping us build solid foundations for the key activities to come.”

Ben Earl, Water Efficiency Manager at Southern Water 

The Participants

The event was expertly facilitated by our partners, Boom Innovation and we brought together a diverse range of people from the water industry, academia, local government, NGOs and the supply chain, all of whom were keen to work together to advance the sustainability and water efficiency agenda.

Each participant was carefully selected to convey their unique perspective on water efficiency challenges, allowing the problem statement to be explored from multiple angles and increasing the chances of developing innovative and effective ideas.

It was very encouraging to see passionate, knowledgeable people giving up their valuable time to contribute to solving the increasingly important issue of water scarcity. The excitement and enthusiasm in the room was palpable as each team passionately communicated their ideas and listened intently to those of others.

Outcomes and Lessons Learned

Everyone involved worked tirelessly over the 2 days, and by the end of the process five promising innovations had been identified with the potential to assist Southern Water in cutting water use. These included a device to track water use, a virtual garden design tool and we even explored mortgages! It is incredible what can be achieved in such a short space of time, when you have great energy and the right people in the room.

For me personally, taking part in the process has been a real eyeopener and given me the following valuable insights into water efficiency and the innovation process:

• Reducing water use is an extraordinarily complex problem and there are no simple answers or silver bullets.
• Collaboration and developing an ecosystem of like-minded partners with diverse knowledge and skills is crucial to solving the water efficiency challenge.
• Sustained reductions in water use will only be achieved through multi-disciplinary, cross-sector partnerships: digital technology development, pioneering academic research, more stringent regulation and national campaigns to raise public awareness of water scarcity are all important elements that need to work together.
• Fit the product or service around the user and their needs, don’t try and force them to conform to your way of thinking.
• Although digital technologies will be an essential tool for solving future demand management challenges, they are only part of the solution.
• Solutions don’t necessarily need to be high-tech to be effective. Sometimes the simple or more traditional solutions are the best.
• Inspiration often comes from outside the sector you are innovating in. Concepts, products and services from other industries can be repurposed and reapplied to great effect.

What’s Next for Sprint Orange?

Sprint Orange can assist our clients to address complex business challenges and achieve their targets. This event represents only the first step towards developing a new product or service, and the Arcadis team and Southern Water are critically examining the merit of the innovations produced before advancing them to the prototyping stage.

Watch this space, the Sprint Orange water journey continues…

I would like to thank all the participants, and everyone involved in the planning and implementation of the event. We could not have done it without you!