“What if we put water at the centre of how we design an economy?” This was the opener from Professor Mariana Mazzucato, co-chair of the Global Commission on the Economics of Water at COP28.
Shaping the scale of the global challenge, Mazzucato proposed putting the wet stuff at the heart of everything – including policies for innovation, industrial strategy and procurement; for governments and for companies; and covering everything from school lunches to cement and steel. Her radical and provocative suggestion would, she said, reframe the funding challenge for water by exposing its presence in everything.
In terms of the narrative on water, as well as the economics, Mazzucato’s thinking is very helpful. When we centre water and reveal its presence in everything, then we reveal its value to all the different groups and individual stakeholders.
This was the ethos behind the memorable and moving The End of Football video produced by Xylem and Manchester City FC in 2021. Without water, the family of City fans were not even able to brush their teeth and have a beer before the match.
The message was that even football ceases to exist without water. In the YouTube comments, one Barcelona fan wrote, “That dry pitch was much more terrifying than a horror movie”, while a Liverpool fan admits to being “genuinely choked up”, saying they “couldn’t imagine” such a scenario.
Chairing a panel at the UKWIR Annual Conference in London on 30 November 2023, on using the evidence base to shape the narrative on water, it was evident that the sector is still in something of a freeze-fear state about the public and media backlash. The list of issues requiring a reset of the narrative continues to grow and as well as leakage, river spills and financial mismanagement, has now moved on to PFAS and drinking water quality too.
While the sector is paralysed under the weight of issues and defensive around skewed public perception, Feargal Sharkey, the bête noire of water company CEOs, continues to make the top ten of PR Week’s Communicators of the Year. Sharkey’s communications skills were extraordinary before he ever entered the water arena – his 1978 hit Teenage Kicks is one of the most enduring songs of its time, and the opening line even inscribed on the gravestone of the legendary DJ John Peel.
A lot of his strength as an environmental campaigner comes straight from the punk ethos – as someone whose opinion cannot be bought. His concern about water comes straight from the heart – without clean water, the pastime he loves the most – fishing – disappears.
It is a very similar message to Xylem’s footballing video – the fight is existential, and the centring of water connects universally. At the UKWIR conference, the purposeful nature of work in the water sector was raised by several speakers, as was the existential challenge of delivering resilient infrastructure in the face of climate change.
What was less clear was how to bring the public alongside the industry. Communications is sometimes referred as a ‘soft’ skill, which is unhelpful because it means it can be discounted as less important, or more easily acquired than so-called hard skills like engineering or mathematics.
No one would describe Feargal Sharkey’s relentless campaigning and musical success as soft. It comes from an unstoppable drive to communicate and connect – to share emotion and experiences – combined with his extraordinary talent.
As the sector’s best communicator, the UK water industry has more to learn than fear from Feargal. He has already provided an invaluable service in raising public awareness, capturing the audience, and centring water. What happens next is up to leaders in this sector.
Feargal’s call-out deserves a response. The stable door is swinging open and the strength of public feeling requires careful nurturing with a strong, engaging, hopeful narrative, a clear plan and robust data.
There is a big difference between being able to communicate and being able to do it really well. Effective communication requires many skills, including active listening, empathy, creativity, and the intelligence to tailor your message to your audience. Give Teenage Kicks a spin on Spotify and you will hear Feargal giving us all a lesson 45 years ago.
