Future proof your business water and reduce costs - public sector

The easiest way to save money on your business water supply is by reducing consumption.

With tight budgets, ambitious efficiency targets, and rigorous accountability, public sector organisations are always under pressure to do both the right thing and save money. So, the more you can do now to save water, the greater the cost savings and the more sustainability credentials your organisation will have.

• How can your organisation reduce water consumption?
• Why take regular meter readings?
• Early leak detection
• Achieving cultural change
• Other measures to take
• Clear on our responsibility

How can your organisation reduce water consumption?

Start with a simple review of your organisations water usage with our 1-page Site Walk Around Checklist. Once completed you can use the results to look for quick wins to improve efficiencies.

For long-term results, establish a process to take regular water meter readings. We make it easy to submit meter readings online with MyAccount, your customer portal. MyAccount, has everything you need to stay in control of your account, keep your bills up-to-date and your costs down, all in one place. With My Account, you can view and download invoices, submit meter readings, update your details, tell us you’re moving premises, get quick access to FAQs and you can now view your account balance. If you haven’t already registered for MyAccount you can do so here.

Why take regular meter readings?

We encourage all our customers to take regular meter readings for 2 main reasons.

Firstly, to track and find ways to lower overall water consumption to ultimately reduce costs and improve sustainability. Taking regular meter readings will give you a more accurate idea of your organisation’s water usage, and that will help you assess the success of any water-saving measure you implement.

Secondly, submitting regular accurate meter readings will help to ensure your bills are up-to-date.

As if this isn’t incentive enough to utilise your water meter, every time you submit a reading online, we’ll donate £1 to the Save the Children Emergency Fund.

Early leak detection

Taking regular meter readings will also help to spot irregular consumption to find and fix costly leaks. Unexpected spikes in usage can be indicative of a leak. This knowledge will allow you to find the leak and do something about it before a lot of water is wasted, and before it has the opportunity to do structural damage that will be costly to repair. When Swindon Borough Council’s use of a water meter detected a leak, it was fixed in just ten days, saving the council an estimated quarter of a million pounds a year in wasted water.

Achieving cultural change

Use our free resources to engage with your staff and encourage cultural changes that result in less water being used on a daily basis. Our free Water Efficiency Guide takes you step-by-step through simple water-saving measures your organisation can take. Changes don’t have to be expensive to be effective. It could be as simple as educating employees about the value of water, including why they need to turn taps off properly and report dripping taps and leaks. A dripping tap may not seem like a big deal, but it wastes around 60 litres of water every week. If there are many leaking taps across your premises, you could end up paying for a lot of wasted water. Our weekly blog is full of helpful information and advice on water efficiency.

Other measures to take

With investment, your organisation’s water-saving measures can be much more effective, and the Return On Investment (ROI) can be surprisingly fast. Our contract through the Crown Commercial Service framework provides you with water services, but we can also offer a range of water retail services that you might like to consider, including Automatic Meter Reading (AMR), and Water Efficiency Audits. AMR is a smart meter that is attached to your existing water meter. It regularly submits accurate meter reads for you. The meter also collects data about your water consumption patterns that you can easily track through your online portal, giving you the power to start saving water and money. Find out how AMR cut £40k from our public sector customer’s annual water bill.

A water efficiency audit will not only highlight the areas where greater efficiencies are needed, it will also suggest the best way to achieve them and estimate the ROI. With a robust Water Efficiency Action Plan, it is possible for organisations to save up to 50% of water consumption.

Clear on our responsibility

We’re committed to managing our business in a responsible way, minimising our carbon footprint and taking an active role in local communities. We will work with you to help you cut costs, build resilience, and reduce your carbon footprint. Your dedicated Portfolio Manager can help you manage water efficiency projects to identify resource efficiency savings.