Transforming Scottish Water’s asset management to ensure sustainable investment decisions

In this article, we explain how Scottish Water, a water and wastewater management organisation, is transforming its asset management to ensure sustainable investment decisions, that is stakeholder aligned, transparent, and evidence-based investment decisions. This includes identification of the main types of investment decisions and the main areas of work required to ensure the decisions are made with the right data and analytics and with the right engagement with stakeholders. We also share Scottish Water’s reasons for embarking on the 10-year transformation and its vision for the future, as well as our experiences. The main takeaways in year 5 of the transformation are as follows: there is no one-size-fits-all blueprint for a transformation; modelling and understanding the organisational decision-making processes is an important step in transforming asset management; transparency as to the data used to develop analytical models, how the analytical models work, and which of the costs, benefits, and risks are considered is likely to identify that not all decision makers are fully aware of the limitations of the data and analytical models used in decision making; and the engagement and long-term commitment of both internal and external stakeholders are essential in a successful transformation.