Analyse your water usage. If you do not already, start now. Your prime meter and sub meters offer accurate data and can offer you analysis over set periods of time, you will be in a much better position to manage and reduce your consumption once you have accurate data. Furthermore, any changes in water usage will be identified earlier than the next bill and any issues, such as leaks, could therefore be rectified, saving the business money. You can purchase or hire sub-meters and/or flow-meters in order to calculate consumption or flow data for key equipment or process lines.
As all business sectors use water in different ways, it can be useful to compare your water usage to other businesses in your sector to really understand how wasteful you may be compared to competitors. It can also be a great motivator to take action because, if your competitors use less water than you, their utility bills are lower providing them with a competitive edge. To help businesses benchmark their water use, Envirowise has developed ‘water account'. This enables a business to enter in its annual water use, which is shown in a graphical format compared to other businesses within the sector, or for food and drink, within the sub sector.
Please click here for access to the ‘water account’
Minimising water use in your business can require financial commitment. However, many measures are cheap and simple to implement and could potentially save you up to 50 percent of your water costs. These measures include:
• Educating staff about implementing water-efficiency measures. This could involve stating their role and responsibilities in a water policy statement, eg reporting leaking taps straight away. Train employees how to use water efficiently and establish a recognition and reward programme for employees and teams who do an outstanding job.
• Gaining buy-in from management by involving staff with responsibility for facilities, finance and operations in water minimisation measures from the outset.
• Appointing a member of staff to monitor water use and identify minimisation opportunities, eg by doing a regular walk-round survey of your business and reading water meters. If your business has major water-using departments, consider installing sub-meters..
• Ensuring that new equipment is water efficient. It may be more expensive to buy water efficient equipment, but it may have a short payback period due to the water savings achieved.
• Protecting against cold weather-related leaks by insulating pipes againt frost damage.
• Considering reusing process water and investigating alternative water sources, eg rainwater and grey water.
• Fitting water-minimising controls, eg push taps, low-flush toilets, flow regulators or restrictors. In companies where the urinals operate without flush control, saving of over £3,800/year in water and sewerage costs can be achieved by installing passive infrared (PIR) sensors at a cost of about £350 and with a payback period of 5 weeks. Spray taps can reduce water use by 60 - 70% compared with conventional taps.
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