Water

There was a slight fall in mains water use per tonne of product but the overall water use of both mains and controlled water rose. We remain on target to meet our 2020 target for mains water reduction, but the target for a 10 per cent reduction in total water use in concrete is proving more difficult and further effort will be directed to this in the coming year.

Chart - Mains water use.
Water consumption data
Water consumption
2010 (baseline)
2014
2015
2016
Mains water consumption – Litres per tonne
26.0321.2420.8720.84
Mains water consumption – megalitres
890.0823.0853.2855.1
Total water consumption – megalitres
9,384.38,881.47,320.38,201.4
Total water consumption – litres per tonne
274.44229.18179.08199.86
Concrete total water consumption – litres per tonne
85.9987.6684.1082.62

Click here for data by business line

Data corrections for 2015 due to improvements in reporting integrity.
Error in 2010 base year total water has been rectified.

When normalised against production changes at business line level, the 2016 performance is 19.99 litres/tonne against a 2010 baseline of 24.43 litres /tonne, showing a reduction of 18.17%

Target: Reduce mains water consumption by 25 per cent by 2020 based on 2010 baseline; reduce the sum of mains and abstracted water for concrete by 10 per cent by 2020 based on 2010 baseline.