Water conservation for business

About Water Stewardship

Water stewardship is a way to evaluate your water use and impacts. It involves evaluating your water use, and making best practices changes. These are most effective if they're adopted both in your business and the local area.

About Water Stewardship

Globally, issues related to water availability and quality are critically important. Water scarcity, flooding and pollution can all be increased by water use and discharge. This can result in ecological, social and economic impacts.

About Water Stewardship

There are four main principles for examining your water use. Consider each of these areas and decide on actions to reduce your impact.

• Quantity - Review the quantity, sources, and impact of your water use to check its sustainability
• Quality - Examine potential pollutants in the water your business discharges (chemical and biological)
• Environment – Restore and preserve High Conservation Value areas around your business
• Governance – Work with stakeholders to achieve fair and transparent water governance

Being A Water Steward

A water steward is a person in your business who sets out the plan and implements strategies. Water stewards should have an understanding of:

• Your business's water useyour water use to check its sustainability
• The context of your area
• The shared risk of water governance and qualityareas around your business

Being A Water Steward

Water mapping is a way to understand your business's water use. It's a simple diagram that captures your water sources, services, end users, and outputs. This allows you to get an idea of how much water you use, and its true costs.

Mapping also helps to identify problems like leaks, and water conservation opportunities. This will allow you to not only save water, but also to cut down on costs.

Being A Water Steward

There are risks that come with industrial water use. This is mainly because businesses share a river basin with other water users. Water stewardship helps to address any potential risks and challenges.

• Physical – Disruption in water supply. Decline in water quality. Impact on production and product quality
• Reputational – Water as a public good. Public view of sustainability. Community opposition
• Regulatory – New water allocations. Stricter water quality standards. Comply to global water strategies
• Financial – Increase in water tariffs. Cost of insurance. Investor reassurance

Identify Opportunities

Auditing your business's water use can help you in establishing baselines. Ways you can check what you use include:

• Analysing your water bill
• Checking your meter readings
• Monitoring patterns of water use

A baseline serves as a benchmark to measure conservation actions against.

Identify Opportunities

Conservation is a key part of water stewardship. The level of effort and cost associated with conserving water is wide ranging.

Some initial opportunities that you can action right away are to:

• Invest in water efficient appliances – such as taps, shower heads, toilets, and dishwashers
• Go waterless – use air-vacuums, high-pressure air jets, and dry sweeping
• Buy devices to save water – such as dual flush systems, toilers cistern bags, and shower timers
• Choose low maintenance plants – such as cacti, peace lilies, aloe vera, and jade