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**Chancellor Alistair Darling announced a new target to reduce UK carbon emissions by 80% by 2050. His budget outlined incentives for businesses to select the least polluting vehicles and a target to make new non-domestic buildings carbon zero by 2019.

**Bracknell-based Tana Water UK Ltd has already begun its carbon reduction programme by changing its company vehicles for a model with lower environmental impact, and reducing heating in its Bracknell warehouse. The company has also used Priority CRM software to reduce the mileage required to service its mains-fed water machines.

Using Priority CRM in combination with tracker devices in the vans, Tana Water UK is able to match up the most efficient route for engineers to follow so that they can service as many customers as possible in one round trip. This avoids the situation where two or three vans are being driven to different companies within the same engineer’s territory and reduces fuel consumption and carbon emissions.

Tana Water machines use a combination of carbon filtration, to remove impurities such as sand, lead, rust, limescale and chlorine from tap water, and ultraviolet light to kill germs at the point of use. To ensure that drinking water is kept safe, the carbon filter has to be changed every six months by a Water Regulations Advisory Scheme (WRAS) approved engineer. As the only WRAS-approved manufacturer in the UK that sells and maintains its own machines, Tana Water UK was able to introduce logistical efficiencies to reduce the carbon emissions involved in the servicing of its own water machines, rather than passing this on to a third party.

“Before we installed the tracker devices and Priority CRM software, engineers were literally passing each other en route to customers," said Nick Heane, Managing Director, Tana Water UK. "Now, each WRAS-approved Tana engineer does all of the servicing of the carbon and UV filters and undertakes any repairs, rather than the same customer being visited by three different engineers. We're absolutely committed to reducing our carbon emissions as a company, and this new system not only achieves that, but with Mr Darling announcing an additional 2p on a litre of fuel from October 2008, it makes good business sense, too."

Last year, Tana Water (UK) Ltd announced that it had initiated a carbon rating programme with co2balance.com to help the company to reduce its overall environmental impact. Recommendations from co2balance.com included: advising Tana Water UK to change one of its company vehicles for a model with lower environmental impact; reducing heating in the Bracknell warehouse; and continuing with its import policy, which has a 68% lower carbon footprint than water dispenser companies shipping in products from farther afield.