The European Benchmarking Co-operation (EBC) is an industry-based, not-for-profit benchmarking initiative to improve water services.
Mission of EBC is to facilitate water utilities in the continuous process of improving & innovating water services and raising transparency, by offering an international benchmarking programme for water services, providing a platform for exchanging leading/best practices of management and operations and sharing knowledge and experiences on benchmarking.
EBC was initiated in 2005 by the national water utility associations of The Netherlands and the Nordic countries (DANVA, FIWA, Norsk Vann, Svenskt Vatten, Vewin) and several utilities of the 6-Cities Group (Copenhagen Energi, Helsinki Water, Oslo kommune VAV, Stockholm Vatten).
After two pilot exercises, EBC started annual benchmarking exercises for water utilities from Europe and even beyond. In 2014, the EBC programme consortium has been converted into EBC Foundation, a legal entity according to Dutch law. This enables to develop a more independent, European profile, to strengthen the governance of the programme and to better focus on EBC's core business: benchmarking water services.
EBC Foundation is governed by a Board, consisting of representatives from FIWA (Finnish water utilities association), Danube Water Program (joint capacity building program of the World Bank and IAWD for the Danube region; Austria), EurEau (European federation of national water utility associations), Norsk Vann (Norwegian water utility association) and Vewin (Dutch water utility association).
The conversion enables further development of the programme, from the perspective of content as well as geography. Apart from Western Europe, EBC's activities will cover in particular Central- and Eastern Europe.