Every January is an opportunity to consider what your business could do better when it comes to conserving energy. The Big Energy Saving Week takes place every year from 17th-23rd January and is the perfect time to truly take stock of what more you could do to reduce costs, save energy in your business, and help the environment. The seemingly endless rise of energy prices in the UK means we need to get savvier with our approach to energy efficiency and the Big Energy Saving Week is a national initiative which encourages new and innovative ways to save energy.
The focus is on education and helping households and businesses get the best prices for their energy whilst also finding ways to save. Saving energy can help with lowering carbon emissions and cutting down on costs. In this article we’ll take a closer look at how tackling your water consumption can contribute to saving energy!
What are the business benefits of reducing your water consumption in the workplace?
Water is a finite resource and when it’s gone, it’s gone. We need to find ways to reduce our water consumption, for both monetary and environmental reasons. Using less water has many benefits for your business, including:
- Reducing costs
- Building resilience in your region in the event of drought
- Meeting government targets around corporate sustainability and water usage
- Impressing and satisfying customer expectations in terms of sustainability and environmental friendliness
- Cutting the carbon footprint of your business
The benefits of reducing your water consumption are clear, so let’s explore ways you can do it.
1. Understand your water consumption
To make a saving and cut usage, you need to properly understand your business’ water consumption. Regularly submitting meter reads helps you to pinpoint areas where it may be possible to make a saving or cut usage. You can view your consumption in My Account, which will help you to notice any anomalies which may indicate leaks or overuse in particular areas of your business. Closely monitoring your usage means you can spot patterns in your water consumption and trial more efficient practices if you believe you’re using too much.
2. Check for leaks
Submitting meter reads often can quickly show if you’re using more water than you should be and this can be a sign of a leak somewhere. Leaks are one of the most common ways businesses and homeowners waste water and see their bills increase. Checking regularly for leaks means you can minimise the risk of losing money this way and also the damage that leaks can do. Wave sends its customers high consumption alert emails when we process higher than usual reads and offer a find-and-fix leak service to help minimise the impact of any leak.
3. Invest in water-saving technologies
Simple changes across your premises can result in significant savings in water consumption and cash. Dual-flush toilets, sprinkler taps and updating old plumbing fixtures are all ways of updating your premises to make sure you’re not wasting any unnecessary water in your day-to-day activities.
4. Promote water consumption and energy saving amongst your staff
For real success with energy saving and water consumption, you need your staff on board. Every member of your team and even visitors to your business should be aware of your commitment to energy efficiency and water-saving measures. You may consider awareness training for your employees, or you could simply make small changes and put best practices in place including:
- Smart water technology, such as self-closing water taps or dual-flush toilets which can save thousands of litres of water a year, providing a large opportunity for saving money within your business whilst also being more sustainable.
- Setting guidelines for sustainable use of facilities such as laundry, showers, kettles, and dishwashers. Examples would include only cleaning dishes when the dishwasher is full, or just boiling the water you in need in the kettle.
- Promote your water strategy internally and invite your employees to give feedback. Then you can use this information to iterate and improve your plan, whilst making employees feel empowered to ultimately make changes which support your business’s goals.
Big Energy Saving Week is a great chance to set your standards for water and energy consumption early in the year. What goals will you and your business be setting?
Wave's business Water Efficiency Services
If you’d like your business to be more considerate to the environment and at the same time reduce your water bills, take a look at our business Water Efficiency Services.
