Wet revolution

To save money, carbon and reputation, businesses should start with their water meters.

All but the most blinkered of corporate giants have grasped the strategic value of cutting carbon dioxide emissions. But another key issue is now filtering through to the business agenda: water use.

Helen Chapman, water efficiency analyst at Thames Water, says there are several factors motivating businesses to cut down. “For some, it’s about saving money, literally not pouring it down the drain. For others, it’s about good business: environmental management is an indicator that financial institutions increasingly look for when considering investment.”

Thames’s business customers, who together use over 20% of the water it supplies, are the focus of its new guide to sustainable water use. The publication suggests simple steps to calculating and reducing water consumption [see box right] and also comes up with some attractive figures. A company can save £500 plus, for instance, by fixing a minor overflowing toilet cistern – which could be losing about 350 cubic metres of water a year.

Water efficiency not only translates into pounds but into carbon efficiency too. “Using less water means less needs to be treated and put into supply – it saves money, resources and energy,” Chapman explains. Businesses can also reduce their carbon footprint by using less hot water, either in offices or industrial processes. Heating just one cubic metre of water to 60ºC from room temperature takes around 46.5kWh and emits 20kg of CO2. “Scale that saving up across your operations,” says Chapman, “and you can start to see how big a difference your business can make.”

Taking this one step further and working out an overall ‘water footprint’ could also give companies a clearer idea of where they need to cut back. Thames is exploring development of an online calculator to do this; as Chapman points out, “it’s a very complex area”.

Getting employees to change the way they use water at work is another key area covered in the guide. Behaviour may be more difficult to influence than simple technological fixes, but Thames believes it is arguably more important. The company has worked on behaviour change through partnerships with sports bodies, and pioneering projects on water and ethnicity with London Sustainability Exchange [see ‘Mosque with a mission’, GF63, p30]. Its latest venture involves persuading London businesses to change attitudes towards tap water across the capital.

London on Tap (www.londonontap.org), launched earlier this year with the then mayor Ken Livingstone and a range of partners, encourages restaurants, bars and hotels to offer tap water to customers. The idea is to help break down the idea that we should all be asking for expensive bottled brands [see ‘Raising the bar for water’ for one London restaurant’s take on this, GF68, p13]. “Tap water is the clear choice here,” says Chapman. “As well as being among the best quality and best tasting in the world, it costs less than a tenth of a penny per litre, is up to 500 times cheaper than bottled water, and is kinder to the environment, emitting around 300 times less CO2 to process than bottled alternatives.”

To help spread the message, the campaign is launching an iconic carafe for the tables of London’s watering holes. More than a hundred designs were entered in a competition that’s to be judged in December.

Meanwhile, Thames has been improving its own water management in the capital. Following massive investment, the company has beaten its target on minimising leakage for two successive years, and now loses 20% less water in London than it did four years ago.

“This is all part of a bigger and increasingly important picture,” Chapman says. “It’s about encouraging and enabling businesses to become more responsible users of water, saving money and sharing their achievements with the wider world.” Gone are the days when saving water was seen as a green gesture; it should be part of any business’s calculations.

13 October 2008

Darren Towers