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The new pledges aim to showcase what the companies are doing to serve the communities in which they operate while also pushing them to do even more for the public good.
As part of the commitment, the companies, including Severn Trent, have signed up for five challenging goals:

• To triple the rate of leakage reduction across the sector by 2030;

• To make bills affordable as a minimum for all households, with water and sewerage bills more than 5% of their disposable income by 2030, and to develop a strategy to end water poverty;

• Achieve net zero carbon emissions for the sector by 2030;

• Prevent the equivalent of four billion plastic bottles ending up as waste by 2030; and

• Be the first sector to achieve 100% commitment to the Social Mobility Pledge.

 
Liv Garfield, Severn Trent Chief Executive, said: “At Severn Trent we know how important it is to be socially responsible as a company, to do the right thing for all of our customers.
“That’s why we’re proud to offer our customers the lowest average combined bills in the land, have helped more than 50,000 people with their bills, and backed the Refill scheme in our region to cut down on single use plastics.

“We’ve already signed up to the Social Mobility Pledge to help people from across our region become part of the Severn Trent family and then to help them get on within the business.
“And we’ve recently announced ambitious plans to reduce leakage by 15% by 2025, while moving closer to our target of generating the equivalent of half of the energy we use from renewable sources by 2020.”
Since privatisation, the water industry in England and Wales has spent around £160bn improving pipes, pumping stations, sewers and treatment centres since privatisation. Customers are now five times less likely to suffer from supply interruptions, eight times less likely to suffer from sewer flooding, and 100 times less likely to have low water pressure.