Celebrating 20 years of Glas Cymru

2021 marks twenty years since Glas Cymru acquired Welsh Water, making us the first - and still only - not-for-profit utility company in Wales and England.

Our unique not-for-profit business model means we can do things a little differently, and we’ve worked hard to do just that over the last two decades, always putting the needs of our customers first. Here you can find out more about what has been done so far and our exciting plans for the future.

As our valued customers, we want you to be part of these celebrations too. Skip to the bottom of the page to find out how you can get involved with our ’20 for 20’ giveaways!

We’ve been doing things differently since 2001, when Glas Cymru was formed as a single purpose company to own, manage and finance Welsh Water. This makes us unique in the UK utility industry as a private company with no shareholders and means any profit we make as a business is re-invested. We reinvest through an extensive programme of activities designed to benefit our three million customers and the precious environment in our care.

In the two decades since we launched our unique not-for-profit operating model, we've...

Invested £6bn to improve drinking water quality, environmental protection and customer service
Returned £440m to customers in the form of ‘customer dividends’
Provided £10 million support for disadvantaged customer groups
Kept customer bills below Retail Prices Index (RPI) inflation each year since 2010; an unprecedented record in the industry
Invested over £1 billion in wastewater systems to help Wales achieve a third of the UK’s total number of ‘Blue Flag’ beaches, despite only 15% of the coastline being in Wales

For the future, we have ambitious plans to do even more:

Our ‘Welsh Water 2050’ long term vision identifies 18 strategic responses to enable us to become a truly world class, resilient and sustainable water service for the benefit of future generations
We’re set to become fully carbon neutral by 2040 and 100% energy self-sufficient by 2050
Along with the 5% reduction in their bills over the next five years customers will also access a more personalised service, and more support will be available for those in vulnerable circumstances and registered to receive priority services by 2025

20 for 20

It may be our birthday, but as we like to do things a little differently around here, we want you to get the gifts! We’re celebrating two decades of doing things differently through our not-for-profit with a ’20 for 20 Giveaway’ every day from May 10th - May 14th. We’re looking for 100 winners in five categories and we’ll be...