Severn Trent earns top-rated 4-star award for the sixth consecutive year!

Severn Trent has been awarded the top-rated 4-star award in the Environment Agency’s Environmental Performance Assessment (EPA) for the sixth consecutive year — a record-breaking milestone that places Severn Trent as the top-performing water company.

Our front-line teams throughout the Severn Trent region have worked phenomenally hard to achieve this award, fuelled by a £15 billion investment programme and a culture of innovation. The scale of the achievement is underscored by the wider water sector’s performance, with no other company securing either four or three star status.

It reflects the Midland’s water company’s long-term commitment to protecting the environment and supporting the communities it serves, as it delivers its biggest ever investment programme across the region.

The type of actions that underpin our environmental performance include:

• Upgrading around 3,000 storm overflows, pumping stations and other pieces of infrastructure to reduce spills by about 40 percent in just one year.  (The dry weather in the spring helped, but the investment was the game-changer.)
• Protecting rivers from pollution by planting nearly 1.5 million trees and restoring around 11,000 hectares of land to its natural state.  (By far the biggest factor affecting river health is land use; if we can reduce pollution flowing into rivers from adjoining land, we can improve the environment and reduce the cost of cleaning water for drinking – an example of the ‘win-win’ approach we seek to take.)
• Creating a world-first Net Zero sewage treatment works.  Not only does this demonstrate UK leadership, but we believe it will also keep customers’ bills lower in the long-term – another ‘win-win’.
• Reducing leakage by another further 15 percent, helping us to reduce our environmental footprint and, ultimately, saving customers money.

A shared mission

Progress is made possible through collaboration and that’s why Severn Trent works closely with environmental charities, local authorities, and regional bodies to ensure its investment lasting value.

Joe Pimblett, CEO of Severn Rivers Trust said, “Severn Trent’s sixth consecutive four-star rating represents sustained progress, at a critical time for our rivers. However, as indicated by the continued dire ecological status of so many waterways throughout the Severn & Trent catchments, there is much more that must be done. This will require coordinated action and collaboration across sectors, particularly within the water, agriculture, and transport industries. The scale and ambition of Severn Trent’s current investment programme, suggests a serious intent to drive lasting change. Continued investment, transparency and innovation will be key to sustaining this momentum.”

Looking ahead

Almost ten months into the 2025 assessment period, Severn Trent is on track to achieve a seventh consecutive year of four-star environmental performance. A range of initiatives are underway to drive year-on-year improvement including:

• Upgrades to over 400 sewage pumping stations
• Investing £300m over the next five years to reduce pollutions
• Doubling the rate of mains renewal to further reduce leakage – 16% reduction in leakage off the back of what is already the industry leading performance
• Multimillion pound investment to reduce the use storm overflows, through targeted infrastructure upgrades including storm tanks to capture rainwater, surface water separation and smaller effective solutions such as flap valves have been delivered
• Investing in further utilisation of AI & technology to provide the most innovative response to environmental challenges and to predict pollutions before they occur

Find out more

You can read more about today’s news here News Releases | News | Severn Trent Water (stwater.co.uk). You can find more information in the star ratings 2011-2024 report. and details of the Environmental Performance Assessment and individual metrics can be found here: EPA report