A look back at 2021

As more UK businesses switch to Castle Water, our business continues to grow, and our commitment to deliver excellent service to all our customers, and to developing and improving our services, remains stronger than ever.

As 2021 draws to a close, we look back on some significant events from this year that demonstrate how we are fulfilling our promises to save our customers money, help them to reduce costs and improve water efficiency, fight for fairer pricing, support local and global communities and young people, and improve our environmental footprint.

• Customer Service Excellence Award
• 10,000th 5-star Trustpilot review
• MyAccount: Scotland roll-out & additional features
• 4,500 free Automatic Meter Reading devices installed
• Driving efficiencies: carbon neutral printing and electric vehicle charging
• Castle Water awarded innovation funding to improve drought resilience
• Save the Children’s Partnership Award
• Therapy Bear Donations
• Apprenticeship Scheme

Customer Service Excellence Award

Last month, Castle Water won the Customer Service Excellence Award at the Perthshire Chamber of Commerce Business Star Awards. Held at Crieff Hydro Hotel on Friday 19th November, the awards recognised the excellent work and achievements of businesses in Perthshire.

In our latest Customer Service Update, we confirmed a £6 million saving was achieved for Castle Water customers during the height of the pandemic in 2020. Our market-leading initiative to stop charging many of our customers for the lockdown resulted in millions of pounds worth of savings for our UK business customers. Castle Water CEO John Reynolds said, “We found a way to reduce customers’ fixed charges at the start of the lockdown, which made life easier for them. It’s been intense and hardworking, but not problematic. A lot of customers have said we’re the only utility supplier that’s actually been helping them.”

Servicing more than 350,000 business customers, Castle Water takes a long-term view of customer relationships and we do as much as possible to help our customers, saving UK businesses up to 20% on their business water when they switch to Castle Water. Read the full post here.

10,000th 5-star Trustpilot review

Castle Water has long held the title of the most reviewed UK water supplier on Trustpilot, and has more 5-star reviews on the platform than all other water suppliers combined. Shortly after celebrating our 7^th anniversary in April, we received our 10,000th review on Trustpilot. Furthermore, in December, Castle Water earned its 10,000th 5-star customer review on Trustpilot. This has been an incredible achievement with more 5-star reviews on the platform than all other water suppliers combined. Rated 'Excellent' and with over 12,500 reviews, Castle Water's Trustpilot score remains a strong 4.5 out of 5.

MyAccount: Scotland roll-out & additional features

MyAccount is now available to all Castle Water customers, following the successfully completed roll-out to Scotland customers. In October, Castle Water CEO, John Reynolds, announced that a major update was planned for the company's online customer portal, MyAccount. Read the full post here.

Since the launch of MyAccount in 2018, Castle Water has consistently fulfilled ambitious plans to develop MyAccount’s functionality through continued investment. In July 2021, recent updates to improve capability of MyAccount for customers, included ‘Find my water meter’ and ‘Statement of Accounts’. MyAccount gives more control to Castle Water customer so they can manage their business water services more efficiently to save water and money. Customers can login to MyAccount to update mailing preferences, switch to paperless billing, and access bills and account information online, anywhere, anytime.

4,500 free Automatic Meter Reading devices installed

This year, Castle Water completed an ambitious project to install 4,500 Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) devices free of charge for eligible customers by 2022, saving customers over £2.67 million in installation costs, and up to £9 million per year in potential leakage costs.

Find our how AMR saved our customer £40,000 a year on their water bills.

Driving efficiencies: carbon neutral printing and electric vehicle charging

In  August we announced that we were carbon balancing our printing operation to combat our business carbon emissions footprint. Castle Water balances more than 18,000kg of carbon emissions in 2021, the equivalent of taking 15 cars off the road for an entire year.  With support from printing partner Potts, our business operational carbon footprint for printing will be calculated, independently verified and then offset by international conservation charity, World Land Trust (WLT). Click here to read the full post.

In September, we installed the first electric vehicle charging points at our Head Office carpark in Blairgowrie, Scotland, providing staff with electric vehicles the convenience of charging up during office hours.

Castle Water supports its customers to reduce the impact their business has on the environment, and reduce costs, by giving free, practical advice on how to use less water. Following COP26, we looked at what we're doing as a business to combat climate change. Download Castle Water's free Water Efficiency Guide here to get started today.

Castle Water awarded innovation funding to improve drought resilience

Castle Water in partnership with Bristol Water, Binnies, RWE, and The University West of England, were awarded innovation funding to explore a local and lower carbon alterative to drought planning, which could shake up the wholesale water market as we know it. The funding has been provided as part of Ofwat’s £36million Water Innovation Challenge and will be used to pilot the development of local water supplies by third parties, seeking to overcome current market blockers. Read the full post here.

Save the Children’s Partnership Award

In April 2021, Castle Water won Save the Children’s award for Outstanding Support for Children in Emergencies. The award was announced as part of Save the Children’s annual partnership awards, and presented by Save the Children CEO Kevin Watkins and Save the Children Ambassador Natasha Kaplinsky. We were pleased to also receive a nomination for The Jay Award for a Momentous Campaign or Initiative. John Reynolds said, “Everyone at Castle is really committed to supporting Save the Children – this is an important part of what we stand for as a company, and it is great to be able to play a role in helping children stay safe, healthy and learning in emergencies around the world."

Over the past year the Emergency Fund has helped children in emergencies in Haiti, Yemen, Afghanistan and Syria. Find out more about Castle Water's partnership with Save the Children here.

Therapy bear donations

In May, Castle Water donated therapy bears to every child at Newhill Primary School in Blairgowrie, Scotland. The school is situated close to Castle Water’s Head Office.

The bears provided a wellbeing aid to the children, helping them with the transition back to school following the extended period of lockdown and distanced learning from home. Click here to read the full post.

Apprenticeship scheme

In June, we started a major recruitment campaign to hire 30 Modern Apprentices for our 2021 Apprenticeship scheme. The Modern Apprenticeship scheme is available for anyone aged between 16 – 24.

Castle Water initially launched its Apprenticeship Program in August 2018. As well as entering full-time employment with a growing business, Castle Water gives its Apprentices the fantastic opportunity to earn as they learn.

95% of Castle Water’s Apprentices remain in the business post-qualification, many of which have already completed their qualification and have been offered permanent contracts with Castle Water.

Click here for more information about the scheme.