Our water efficiency work continues to have a real and demonstrable impact. In a recent survey of last year's members of our Rippleffect water efficiency initiative 53% have started to achieve water savings and over 80% can now measure their water use. Water savings action plans are in place in over half the companies, and almost half have put specific water saving devices in place such as cistern volume reduction products, urinal controls or automatic taps.
Rippleffect 2009
This September sees the launch of the Rippleffect which includes new webcasts, web conferences and advanced topics. It now covers water efficiency advice in areas such as rainwater harvesting, greywater reuse and boiler & cooling tower operation. Whether your business is an office, hotel or restaurant with washrooms and kitchen facilities, or a factory with processing lines, the Rippleffect can help you reduce water use and save money. More than 450 businesses are already registered for the new phase.
Click here to sign up to the Ripplefffect initiative, closing date 14 September 2009
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"Rippleffect has assisted our business to recognise and promote waste reduction and reduce fresh water consumption, reinforcing our commitment to achieve greater savings." Peter Hutchison, Trinity Mirror Printing Saltire Ltd.
You don't need to spend money like water – not only can you get free support from Envirowise, but if you take action you can in fact save a lot of it, just as Rippleffect member Pincroft Dyeing and Printing Company has done. It saved a huge £78,000. How much could you potentially save?
"The Rippleffect programme has given us the tools and resources to make significant savings for our organisation. The programme gave us a structured plan which opened up many other business and environmental benefits previously overlooked." Ian Rawcliffe, Pincroft Dyeing & Printing Co. Ltd.
Congratulations to all those companies which excelled in the Environment Agency Water Efficiency Awards 2009. There were nine amazing winners, with the top accolade going to Lafarge Cement which achieved a stunning water use reduction of 95% by creating an innovative water recycling system at its Staffordshire works. It has set the bar extremely high for the future companies – but we would love to celebrate an even bigger success for someone next year. Other winners included Save Water, Save Money Limited which helped schools to save over 14m litres of water annually, and Berkeley Homes which looked at the impact of water restriction on house sales. You can find more great winning stories and ideas that you could implement in your own business by visiting the awards site at www.water-efficiency-awards.org.uk.
How can Envirowise Help?
Envirowise works with hundreds of companies a year, sometimes interacting with many businesses through a series of events. That was exactly the idea behind the Water Audit Workshops held jointly with the Transforming Telford partnership earlier this year. Events were hosted by office supplies firm Lyreco in the West Midlands, and representatives of ten other companies were invited to participate. These visitors were able to observe the Water Auditing process and ask questions of the experts. This activity came about in response to requests from local businesses wanting practical activities and ideas to help them learn how to track water usage and identify opportunities to reduce water waste. The result was a hugely enjoyable event which showed how significant potential savings could be identified. For example, the Envirowise team helped Lyreco to identify potential water and sewage cost savings of £12,000 per annum even though they have no major process use of water within their business. It was unsurprising that every single attendee said the event had been useful, and almost all went away committed to doing things differently within their own companies.
Did You Know?
By reducing water consumption you can also reduce the carbon footprint of your business, for example, for every cubic metre of water saved, you will save approximately 1 kg of CO2 equivalent (Water UK sustainability Indicators 2007/8)
Food and drink industry pulls the plug on wasting water
The first annual report of the Federation House Commitment has shown how 36 of the UK's leading food and drink manufacturers have implemented a wide range of measures to become more water efficient. You can read the Federation House Commitment Annual Report to find out about some of the innovative steps companies are taking to reduce water use within daily operations. The commitment is helping the food and drink industry to achieve a water reduction target of 20%, and during 2008, signatories reduced their total water consumption (except that embedded within the products themselves) by 476,000 cubic metres compared with a 2007 baseline. . . If you are a food or drink manufacturing company come and join us today at www.fhc2020.co.uk and we'll help you to take steps that will save you money and reduce your water use.
Are you still pouring money down the drain?
With water set to become an increasingly expensive and scarce resource we urge all businesses to start to implement simple, low-cost initiatives to reduce their water consumption. To make it even easier for businesses to introduce water saving measures, Envirowise has launched a new step-by-step online Water Efficiency Tool that helps companies identify where and how water is used and treated, the costs involved, and practical ways to recycle water. To use the Water Efficiency Tool and find a portal to all sorts of useful, practical information about how to reduce your water waste please visit www.envirowise.gov.uk/water.