How Anglian Water is reducing environmental impact using low-code

The use of Appian low-code capabilities by Anglian Water has led to a 63 per cent reduction in capital carbon, and is advancing the utility company’s sustainability initiatives

Anglian Water uses the Totex Delivery Workflow (TDW) — a cloud-based solution built on the Appian Low-Code Platform — to manage and monitor thousands of capital-intensive projects, including pipeline management and smart meter installation and maintenance.

Energy utilisation, assets, and costs can be tracked using the Appian platform, giving the utility company the capability to iterate asset design through the investment and design phases to reduce capital carbon — a value relating to materials and construction processes.

Real-time insights delivered by the solution ensure that Anglian Water staff can access the metrics they need to make accurate and time-sensitive decisions.

Users are able to access cloud-based information from anywhere, on any device, making the system ideal for hybrid working.

This all-important data-driven visibility has proved key to helping reduce the company’s environmental impact, while maintaining value for customers.

Currently serving as the largest water company in England and Wales by geographic area, Anglian Water is on target to achieve net zero operational carbon emissions by 2030. Its partnership with Appian was established in 2019.

>See also: How the tech sector is measuring ESG impacts

“We and the other English water companies have committed to being net zero carbon for operational emissions by 2030,” said Richard Buckingham, climate change and carbon manager at Anglian Water.

“We also have another target of reducing capital carbon by 65 per cent by 2025 from our 2010 baseline, then to 70 per cent by 2030.”

Steven Teasdale, area vice-president for UKI and the Middle East at Appian, commented: “Anglian Water needed an intelligent workflow solution to provide real-time data to make sound, robust business decisions across investment projects in its network. But with their ambitious goals around sustainability and operational efficiency, time was of the essence.

“The Appian Low-Code Platform enables Anglian Water to create and expand on the TDW solution quickly and easily, help accelerate their data-driven decisions and see the immediate impact of their investments on their zero-carbon transformation journey.”

Low-code technology has also proven useful in mitigating the tech skills gap across the UK, and globally, with users being able to leverage it without the need for a traditional coding background.

Related:

How the water industry can plug customer experience leaks — Melissa Cowdry, director of field marketing at Odigo, discusses why the water industry needs to prioritise customer experience, and how automation and as-a-service solutions can help.

Responsible Tech Series: how tech can lend itself towards sustainability worldwide — The Responsible Tech Series explored how tech can help businesses to adopt a model entrenched in global sustainability.

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Aaron Hurst

Aaron Hurst is Information Age's senior reporter, providing news and features around the hottest trends across the tech industry.