Posts tagged: Reading

Water is not usually at the forefront of an organizations’ sustainability targets, but it is one of the earth’s most valuable resources — widely used in commercial and industrial businesses, in applications like cooling towers, irrigation systems, indoor appliances, and manufacturing processes.

Whereas automated building and energy management systems are all the rage when it comes to making sustainability improvements, the focus on water often falls behind. But water management solutions exist, and they can track water use in real-time, provide up-to-date data, show where problems are occurring at any moment, and provide risk assessments, as well as solutions.

So, what can a company do to implement smart water management strategies that eliminate water waste, conserve this valuable resource, and help them achieve their ESG and sustainability goals?

Steps for Getting Started

Up front, a business should outline a water management plan, beginning with evaluating what water systems they currently have, where they use water, and how those systems are operated on each property. From there, priorities and goals can be established, and then metrics can be tracked.

Step 1. Survey site or properties

A survey or assessment of all areas of a property that use water will provide a wealth of information about current water consumption and existing infrastructure. A deep dive into the gathered data will offer insight into areas that are using more water than necessary and give visibility into potential areas of water efficiency improvement.

Step 2. Establish baseline and set goals

One important thing an organization should do is establish a baseline for its water use, and ask themselves:

• How much are they currently using?
• What do the last few years’ worth of water bills look like?
• Is the usage consistent over the years?
• Are some areas of a site using more water than others?

With the site assessment and establishment of water use baselines, organizations can pinpoint and prioritize areas they want to focus on first. Then, they should ask themselves:

• What has been done in the past when it comes to water use efficiency and infrastructure or management changes?
• How did those upgrades or changes work?
• Were any water reduction goals set previously?
• Did they fulfill those goals — and how so?
• What new sustainability goals should be established to reduce or eliminate water waste?

Organizations should ensure they set goals that are both achievable and sustainable.

Step 3. Cost-benefit proposal

Businesses can develop a cost-benefit proposal for various smart water solutions to fit their operations. From smart irrigation systems to leak and flow monitoring services, evaluating the return on investment for water efficiency initiatives makes the choice easier to get budget approval, especially if it will also provide metrics towards ESG goals.

When evaluating various options, create a plan to show which properties or areas of a site can save the most water, are easy to implement, and which of those potential tools best fit into their budgets. From there, prioritize and move forward with the initiatives that make the most sense financially and operationally.

Step 4: Track water management strategies

Once a business has decided to implement smart water management strategies, they must continue to track water use and see where they are moving forward on the goals they’ve set. Ensuring the business has real-time water usage data available is important to provide on-demand reports and metrics to their sustainability team.

Ensure the right team at the organization has the right water data available to them. From operations to facilities to sustainability — data continuity and visibility lets actionable water management decisions be made.

If a company is only looking at energy, fossil fuel use, and emissions, it could be missing a big piece of its ESG puzzle, both in terms of resource management and financial savings. Making water a part of sustainability goals and implementing smart water management strategies is key to eliminating water waste and conserving this valuable resource. To learn more about how to meet ESG targets with smart water management, download our free eBook.

esg | esg goals | net positive | net positive water | net zero | water positive

Smart organizations know the importance of putting sustainability and ESG goals at the forefront of their values and priorities. The concept of “net zero” initially became widespread as a carbon-footprint goal. Being net zero carbon means companies offset their carbon emissions, therefore becoming carbon neutral. From there, the concept of net zero spread to water and “net zero water” became a popular sustainability goal — for companies to achieve a balance between the amount of water put into the environment vs. the amount taken from it. Now, many companies’ goals of achieving net zero water are slowly but surely being replaced by an even more ambitious goal —reaching net positive water.

Achieving net positive water means that instead of avoiding the depletion of water resources, a company contributes more water to the ecosystem than it consumes. As the world faces a 56% deficit in available freshwater by 2030 and companies reported financial impacts from water risks at $301.B – net positive water is becoming a goal that more organizations are pursuing.

What Exactly is Net Positive Water?

For a company to achieve net positive water means that they are creating more water than they are using. This “creation” of water can be achieved in many ways, including capturing and reusing rainwater or treating wastewater onsite. Doing so means that water that would typically be lost or wasted by a company can be treated and become available as freshwater. The freshwater can then replenish stressed water basins or be used to irrigate onsite. So, the output of water by a company is more significant than their intake of water, making them water positive.

How to Achieve Net Positive Water

While there’s no one-size-fits-all approach, corporations can take a few concrete steps to reduce their water use and make it more achievable. These include:

• Implementing smart water management strategies, including smart irrigation and leak detection and water use analytics services:
  • Water waste prevents companies from achieving net positive water goals. A great way to combat this is implementing smart irrigation practices. Unlike traditional irrigation controllers, smart irrigation controllers don’t operate on preset schedules and timers — they tailor watering and run times to the specific landscape. Automation cuts off the water at the moment it’s no longer needed. Companies can also invest in a leak detection and water use analytics service that provides real-time visibility of their indoor and outdoor water usage — letting them get ahead of leaks and breaks that cause wasted water.
• Harvesting rainwater and using recycled water
  • A smart way to limit freshwater consumption is to use alternative water sources such as captured rainwater, recycled water, pond or reservoir water, and water that’s been treated onsite. Capturing rainwater involves collecting run-off rainfall from roof tops into gutters and channeling water into storage vessels such as rain barrels or large cisterns. This recycled water can then be used for outdoor irrigation or indoor non-potable uses, reducing an organization’s overall freshwater usage.
• Treating wastewater on-site
  • Typically, buildings send their wastewater to sanitary sewers that feed into municipal treatment facilities, but some companies — like Google’s Bay View campus — are instead treating all of their campus’ wastewater onsite. This water is then reused for non-potable demands including toilet flushing, irrigation, and cooling towers. 

How Organizations are Making Net Positive Water a Reality

A handful of major corporations like Pepsi, Microsoft, and Google have pledged to become water positive by 2030. A shining example of how to achieve this is Google’s Bay View campus in Mountain View, California. The campus has already reached net positive water impact and is striving to replenish 120% of the water they consume by 2030.

They’ve done so primarily by building an on-site system to collect, treat, and reuse all stormwater and wastewater. This system treats all the campus’ wastewater from restrooms and kitchens to be reused for non-potable demands, such as toilet flushing, irrigation, and cooling towers. Google has attributed its success with this initiative to collaboration and innovation across energy systems, plumbing, landscaping, and water treatment — looking at the whole picture of how they consume water instead of seeing this as a one-off practice. While becoming water positive is an admirable ESG goal for companies, as we know about any trend in the sustainability space, it’s not a cure-all. We must all — corporations, governments, and people — continue to do whatever we can to work together to conserve our world’s most precious resource: water.

carbon emissions | conserve water | decarbonization | smart water management | sustainability | water waste

When reducing carbon emissions — also known as decarbonization —people tend to think of strategies like using public transportation instead of driving, using solar power instead of traditional electricity, and trying to limit their overall energy use. What many fail to realize is how deeply water use is intertwined with energy consumption — and that water conservation can contribute to decarbonization.

The Link Between Water Use and Carbon Emissions

Many people aren’t aware of the significant amount of carbon embedded in our water infrastructure and that reducing our water use reduces our carbon footprint. Water systems within buildings and facilities are a major source of greenhouse gas emissions(Source: WINT Water Intelligence). For some local U.S. governments, water and wastewater can account for 30-40 percent or more of public energy consumption — and approximately 25 percent of all water in the built environment is ultimately wasted, driving up water-related energy use and carbon emissions (Source: Water World).

Think about the water we use every day; it’s been treated to be safe and usable, and then transported to us — both of which are energy-intensive processes that produce carbon emissions. When we waste water that’s been treated and delivered, we’re also wasting the energy with it.

While the amount of emissions varies based on the water source and distribution method, approximately every cubic meter of water consumed generates 10.5 kg of carbon emissions, or 85 pounds of carbon for every 1,000 gallons of water. This data makes it clear that a key piece of decarbonization is being smarter about how we use water.

Eliminating Water Waste with Smart Water Management

Water use inefficiencies are extremely common in commercial and municipal buildings and facilities. Water is wasted through leaks, malfunctions, human errors, and outdated technology — but it doesn’t have to be. There are smart water management technologies — for both indoors and out — that can catch leaks, malfunctions, and human errors quickly to eliminate this unnecessary water waste.

It’s estimated that as much as 50 percent of outdoor water use is wasted through evaporation, wind, or runoff, due to outdated and inefficient irrigation systems (Source: EPA WaterSense).

Smart irrigation systems are a great solve for this. Unlike traditional irrigation controllers, smart irrigation controllers don’t operate on preset schedules and timers — they tailor watering and run times to the specific landscape. Automation cuts off the water at the moment it’s no longer needed — preventing unnecessary water waste.

Leak detection and water use analytics services can also prevent unnecessary water waste by providing real-time visibility of indoor and outdoor water usage. This makes it easier to get ahead of leaks and breaks before they waste a significant amount of water.  

Water Conservation Efforts Lead to Reduced Carbon Emissions

Lowe’s is a great example of a company experiencing reduced carbon emissions through their efforts to eliminate water waste. By rolling out smart irrigation systems to nearly 1,000 of their retail facilities, they have seen annual water savings of 650 million gallons of water and an annual downstream GHG savings of about 750 metric tons CO2e, comparable to over 84,000 gallons of gasoline.

If 2,000 retail stores in the U.S. used smart irrigation systems to increase their water use efficiency, water use could be reduced by almost 1.4 billion gallons and greenhouse gas emissions by 1,590 metric tons.

As global carbon emissions continue to rise and we feel the negative impacts of this, it’s critical to continue focusing on decarbonization — and water use needs to be a bigger part of that conversation. Want to learn more about how to get smarter about water use to prevent unnecessary water waste and carbon emissions? Check out our eBook on achieving ESG goals with smart water management.