We are now Future For Water
Our new logo
Why our charity has a new name that reflects our year-round impact
Three years ago, we started with a simple idea - to bring unlikely people together by the river and see what happens. Water company CEOs working alongside NGO’s, Ministers listening to citizen scientists, regulators collaborating with community groups.
The UK River Summit worked. It became a catalyst for genuine partnerships, policy influence, and lasting change although something interesting happened between our annual gatherings - the work didn't stop.
Today, we're proud to announce that our charity is now Future for Water.
While The River Summit & Festival remains our flagship event, our work has evolved far beyond two days by the river. We're now active year-round through initiatives that are transforming how we protect water:
Testing the Waters Consortium - Our coalition of water monitoring experts meeting regularly, influencing national policy and shaping how the UK monitors water quality. From citizen scientists to water companies, regulators to tech innovators, we are all working together on solutions that matter.
Policy influence - We respond to Government White Papers, submitting evidence to inquiries and ensuring diverse voices reach decision-makers. Our collective recommendations carry weight because collaboration is real, not performative.
Creative engagement - We work with artists, filmmakers, and storytellers to make water protection compelling and deeply human because people protect what they love, and creativity touches hearts in ways data alone cannot.
Community connections - We introduce people who need to meet, weaving partnerships that didn't exist before and supporting the patient work of relationship-building that makes transformation possible.
Exploring human behaviour and water - Understanding how we relate to water so we can create lasting change, from consumption patterns to emotional connection to active stewardship.
What This Means
Future for Water is the charity. Everything we do sits under this name:
• The River Summit & Festival (our annual celebration and catalyst)
• Testing the Waters Consortium (year-round water monitoring collaboration)
• Creative projects and partnerships (ongoing throughout the year)
• Policy work and advocacy (continuous, not episodic)
• Community building (the patient work of weaving connections)
What's Not Changing
Our independence. Our commitment to genuine collaboration. Our belief that transformation happens when unlikely people work together. Our annual gathering by the river in Henley.
The passion, the people, the partnerships, the vision of water protection through human connection - all of this continues, now with a name that reflects the full scope of our work.
Looking Forward
We're not just organising events anymore. We're building a movement - collaborative, creative, ongoing, impactful. Where water companies genuinely partner with citizen scientists, where policy is informed by communities, where art and science work together, where protecting water happens through connection, not confrontation.
Future for Water reflects that reality.
The river remains our heartbeat - where we gather, where water becomes beloved, where standing together reminds us what we're protecting. But our work flows far beyond the banks of September, into every month of the year, into partnerships that persist, into change that lasts.
We remain grateful for your support - whether you've attended the Summit, joined Testing the Waters, or simply believe that water's future depends on all of us working together.
The Inspiration
Our new name and logo were inspired by artist Roberta Mason's hand-blown glass bowl, capturing a mountain sunrise and a sunset reflecting in the river-fed Lac de Montbel in the French Pyrenees. Designed by Kieran Nason of Two Wolves Design, the logo reminds us that water connects everything - art and science, beauty and purpose, community and collaboration.
This beautiful bowl will be at all our events carrying the river closest to us so they are always in the room.
“As Claire transitions her work toward a broader, more vital horizon with Future for Water, the role of art in our environmental dialogue has never felt more essential. Last summer, Claire and I began a collaboration to create a personal vessel for her water ceremonies—a piece intended to honour the element’s vital importance to life itself and the vast landscapes it carves.
At the heart of the Future for Water mission is a deep devotion to our global waterways. To reflect this, the design of the bowl evolved through a focus on the “life force” of the river. As a maker whose practice is intrinsically linked to water, I saw this as a dream commission: a chance to translate the movement of a living current into a permanent, physical form using the fluid nature of glass.
Inspired by the interplay of light on water—from the clarity of high-altitude lakes to the shifting depths of the sea—the bowl uses a complex layering of opaque and transparent glass. At its core, a lustre finish provides the silver-cool reflectivity of water, while “warmer” hues of saffron, orange, and pink capture the light of the sun at the horizon.
The result is a celebration of movement and light—a piece that balances the “ebb and flow” of the natural world with the vibrant, infectious energy Claire brings to her advocacy. For me, the River Summit Bowl is more than a bespoke commission; it is a symbol of our collective commitment to the water that sustains us, and a beautiful anchor for the work ahead with Future for Water.”
