At United Utilities, we are committed to being open and transparent about the environmental impact of our operations. Under the Environmental Information Regulations (EIR), you have the right to request environmental information from us. This legislation ensures access to environmental data held by public authorities and other bodies performing public functions.
In 2024, we responded to 365 requests, providing over 16 million lines of data and 200 pages of documents to individuals and organisations including customers, campaigners, journalists and non-governmental organisations or NGOs.
We have invested in capability and systems to support this level of interest, with a dedicated team handling requests and a new system to provide timely responses within a 20-day target period.
Expectations about what data we share change constantly and we are responding to this trend. For example, a map on our website shows near-real reporting of storm overflow activations and we publish overflow spill data monthly, rather than annually. A dedicated part of our website provides information on performance and our EIR disclosure log shares our responses to EIRs. We speak regularly with the Information Commissioner’s Office to ensure we are clear on its expectations on the type of environmental data that should be disclosed.
In October 2024, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), issued United Utilities with a Practice Recommendation (reference: FPR0987680 14102024), highlighting areas where our procedures for handling EIR requests require improvement. Here is our response to the ICO, detailing the steps we have taken to address their recommendations and improve our practices.