NEBC

The North European Benchmarking Co-operation (NEBC) was initiated in 2004 by the national water associations and several water utilities from Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.

Supported by

Objective of the co-operation is to facilitate water utilities in the continuous process of improving efficiency and transparency by:
- exchanging knowledge and experiences on benchmarking;
- developing and managing a collaborative, international benchmarking programme;
- exchanging best practices of management and operations.

The NEBC-partners’ initial comparison of the different national benchmarking programmes showed significant variations in applied methodologies, definitions and participation levels. Since harmonisation of these national programmes in the next few years is unlikely, the partners aim at establishing an additional, international benchmarking programme, that enables reliable comparison of utilities performances across countries.

To start, the NEBC-partners carried out a preliminary pilot project in which fifteen 15 water utilities from three countries analysed costs of water supply at a detailed process level. After this pilot, the NEBC-partners decided to develop an international benchmarking model for water- as well as for wastewater activities, suitable for larger as well as for smaller utilities and to focus not only on costs, but on all key performance areas.

In 2007/2008 a second, larger pilot project has been carried out with 30 water utilities from 10 different European countries. Water- and wastewater activities were benchmarked with the newly developed model, which is based on IWA’s PI-system. After a best practices event in Amsterdam and an extensive evaluation by the participants, April 2008 the pilot ended. For public communication, a brief report with an overview of the pilot project has been produced.

Based on the quite positive feedback of the participants, the NEBC-partners intend to develop the project towards a regular, Europe-wide benchmarking programme for water services. The next benchmarking project, with data of 2007, will run from June - November 2008.

The International Water Association (IWA) supports the NEBC benchmarking programme.