“They profit from pollution”: shareholders bagged £380 for every hour they dumped sewage in 2023 — see the level in your area

Campaigners are calling for an end to water privatisation after it was revealed that England’s privatised sewage companies paid out an average of £377 to shareholders for each hour they polluted in 2023.

Shareholders received over £1.35 billion in dividends in 2022/23 as their companies released sewage for over 3.5 million hours last year.

A new tool shows how each water company has performed, including exposing Severn Trent and United Utilities as  the worst offenders, paying out £972 and £692 to their owners per hour of pollution.

SEE YOUR COMPANY'S PROFIT FROM POLLUTION RATE HERE

The high figures for these companies did not reflect shareholders receiving rewards for lower pollution. United Utilities was the largest polluter in 2023 with Severn Trent coming in 4th.

The only company without a comparable figure is Southern Water, which was forced into a dividend ban after credit rating agency Fitch downgraded its status in 2023. Southern Water released sewage for 317,285 hours in 2023 and has paid out £2.3 billion in dividends since privatisation, equivalent to £213 per hour if extrapolated across the whole privatisation period.

The organisation behind today’s figures, We Own It, has launched an interactive tool to allow the public to visualise how much companies “profit from pollution” in their area:

SEE YOUR COMPANY'S PROFIT FROM POLLUTION RATE HERE

The group argues that by paying out dividends to shareholders in 2022/23, the water companies have deprived their networks of the investment needed to stop sewage spills and therefore “profit from pollution.”

We Own It campaigns for 21st-century ownership, with the public, not Whitehall, empowered to control services for people, not profit. They recently launched a vision for publicly owned water companies to include anti-sewage campaigners, such as Surfers Against Sewage, workers, and billpayers on the utilities board.

The new figures come as Thames Water remains under financial threat with Treasury officials proposing nationalisation without compensation and a haircut for the utilities’ creditors as the best response.

Matthew Topham, Lead Campaigner at We Own It, said: “No one else in Europe runs water like England. Today’s figures are a clear reminder of why: under privatisation, you profit from pollution.”

“Privatisation is often said to have led to investment. Sadly, that’s just not true. All the cash invested has come from our bills. In fact, £73 billion has been syphoned off to shareholders instead of being invested to prevent these sewage spills.

“The regulators had 35 years to get private companies working in the public’s interests. It hasn’t happened and the reality is it can’t. Regulators have a duty to shareholders, making it impossible to put our rivers and seas first.

“Project Timber shows Special Administration can be used to transfer water companies into local public ownership at no cost while putting local sewage campaigners and service users in charge so it no longer ‘pays to pollute.’”

James Wallace, CEO of River Action UK, said: "These devastating figures show yet again that our Government regulators have put polluters' profits before people and our planet.

"With the general election looming we need the new Government to regulate water companies with the full force of the law, prioritising cleaning up our rivers, securing freshwater and restoring nature.

“Failing companies should be put into special administration and refinanced with customer and public interests as well as environmental sustainability used as measures of financial performance.

“River Action and many other stakeholders will eagerly await the commitments made in the first 100 days, especially on how the Environment Agency and Ofwat will be empowered to clean up the mess of a decade's strategic deregulation and austerity."