Vision
Water is used wisely, every day, everywhere, by everyone
Equity, diversity and inclusion statement
At Waterwise, we’re committed to driving equity and preventing discrimination at work and in the work we do. We know that simply having a diverse workforce is not enough. We want to create an inclusive environment within Waterwise, and in our work and events, where everyone can contribute their best and develop to their full potential. We celebrate and value how different everyone is, and we work hard to ensure everyone is treated with dignity and respect. This aligns with our ‘People’ value that we will prioritise staff wellbeing, and will be an inclusive, kind and positive team.
A great deal of our impact is delivered in partnership. We commit to engaging and collaborating with a wider range of communities, to help deliver climate justice and social justice through water efficiency. We will use our independence to drive more equity, diversity and inclusion in the environment and water sectors, positively influencing where we can.
What we’re doing already
We are taking steps such as anonymous applications and focusing on skills and not just experience, to debias our recruitment to the Waterwise Board and staff team. We have ringfenced roles for disabled applicants only. We do not allow all-white or all-male panels at our events. We measure the diversity of our Board and staff team annually and we have measures in place to drive and measure inclusion at work, and how it feels to work here. We have equity, diversity and inclusion champions both in the staff team and on our Board. We seek to ensure a wider range of voices at our events and have been measuring what our impact has been on this, which will inform our future work. We factor climate justice into our work streams. We updated our vision to make clear that it includes everyone. We have had some success on EDI but have more to do, and are committed to proactive work and continuous learning.
What we achieved in 2025
In 2025 we strengthened our evidence-led approach to equity, diversity and inclusion by systematically collecting and reviewing EDI data across recruitment, training and learning. This included detailed diversity monitoring at application stage for all staff recruitment, EDI monitoring for Waterwise training and webinars, and large-scale data collection through the Water Literacy Programme. Importantly, 2025 has provided us with robust baselines for enabling us to move from intent to measurable improvement in future years.
This data shows that our recruitment processes are attracting applicants from a range of genders, ethnicities, sexual orientations, socio-economic backgrounds and people who identify as disabled, supporting our continued use of inclusive recruitment practices such as anonymous applications and ringfenced roles.
Participation data from our training, webinars and the Water Literacy Programme demonstrates engagement from a broad age range, a strong representation of women, and meaningful participation from people from global majority backgrounds and LGBTQ+ communities. Importantly, 2025 has provided us with robust baselines for the first time, enabling us to move from intent to measurable improvement in future years. In 2026, our focus will be to increase our engagement across all activities with people under 25, those from global majority backgrounds, and people with disabilities.
We have been less successful in capturing the diversity of audiences reached through campaigns and communications, as recent data gathering identified the gaps. In 2026, we will ensure we understand more about who our communications reach, so we can set baselines and targets to make our campaigns inclusive and accessible to everyone.
Our focus for 2026
Building on the evidence gathered in 2025, we will focus on three priority areas in 2026:
- Inclusive recruitment and progression
We will move beyond applicant diversity to better understand progression and outcomes at each stage of recruitment, using this insight to identify and address any barriers for underrepresented groups. In particular, we will aim to increase the percentage of applications and appointments of candidates living with disability and global majority candidates in our Board recruitment during 2026. We will implement optional workplace passports for all staff, to help us to understand and address barriers to development and progression. - Inclusive learning, training and events
Using the baselines established through our events, training, webinar and Water Literacy Programme data, we will aim to widen participation and ensure our learning opportunities are accessible, inclusive and relevant to diverse audiences. In particular, we will aim to increase the percentage of attendees who are under 25 (to 10% compared to 6% in 2025), from global majority backgrounds (to 15% compared to 12.6% in 2025), or have a disability (to 15% compared to 10% in 2025) - Understanding and widening who we reach
We will continue to improve how we capture and use audience diversity data across campaigns, communications and engagement activity, using this insight to reach people and communities who are underrepresented in water efficiency conversations. We will use data gathered during 2026 as a baseline to set targets for 2027 onwards.
This EDI statement and our wider EDI policy will be reviewed on an annual basis. We will report against this and the existing measures set out above early 2027, when we will also publish our 2027 EDI Statement.
