EBC Foundation

The European Benchmarking Co-operation (EBC; structured as a foundation under Dutch law) is an industry-based, not-for-profit benchmarking initiative to help utilities to improve their water services. EBC Foundation annually organises benchmarking exercises for water- & wastewater utilities in Europe and beyond. EBC analyses six performance areas in order to present a balanced view on the performance of utilities: Access, Water Quality, Reliability, Service quality, Sustainability (including a climate footprint), Finance & Efficiency. In order to facilate the exchange of best practices and knowledge sharing, EBC organises an annual workshop in November, hosted by one of the participants and Knowledge Picnics. Knowledge Picnics asre short expert meetings (small groups of max.10 to 15 people), hosted by one of the participating utilities, experiences/best practices arround one specific process/theme will be discussed. The benchmarking results can help identifying the relevent topics for these Picnics, determine improvement potentials and signalling the best performers in the group to share good practices with. Participation in EBC’s benchmarking programme is on a voluntary basis. The programme is aligned with the IWA & AWWA benchmarking framework and applies the IWA Performance Indicator System extended with over 10 years of benchmarking experience. This provides a standard for exchange between the different programmes. Since 2007 (start of our benchmarking programme), more than 140 water- and wastewater utilities from 35 different countries participated in one ore more benchmarking cycles of the Western European Programme. Together they serve over 165 million people with drinking water services and almost 129 million people with wastewater services!