Water use in the hospitality sector is high due to a combination of many factors including large customer numbers, long opening hours and a high turnover of staff. Implementing zero-cost or low-cost water efficiency measures can result in large savings. The difficulty is how to get premises within this sector to buy into water efficiency. In 2007 and 2008, in 2 projects funded by SEEDA, ech2o worked within the hospitality sector to understand the barriers to implementing water efficiency measures within this sector, and ultimately to succeed in reducing the water consumption of the pubs, clubs and restaurants that were involved.
Stage one of the project was carried out for Crawley Council in 2007.ech2o identified and implemented water efficiency measures in over 40 businesses within the hospitality sector saving over 5,000 m3 of water a year, an average saving of 115m3 of water per premises per year. ech2oalso fitted data loggers to ten premises to start to understand patterns of water use within this sector. A comprehensive report detailing the project, considering the best way to ensure buy-in of the businesses, and analysing the savings made, is available to download on the right.
In 2008, ech2o expanded the scope of the project and worked with eight Local Authority partners and two water supply companies, across the South East. ech2o trained selected staff to carry out water audits and implement the simple water efficiency measures, rather than doing it themselves. As chains had proved difficult to engage with in Crawleyech2o were tasked to specifically target chains to understand their reluctance to take up locally offered water efficiency solutions. Total water savings achieved under this stage of the project are calculated to be 2812m3 of water across 51 premises, an average saving of 55m3 of water per premises per year. The comprehensive report considering the successes and failures of this approach is available to download on the right. In addition this report also analyses the year’s worth of data collected from the Crawley loggers.
Anybody tasked with implementing a sustainable water policy within premises in the hospitality sector should read these reports. In addition, both reports will provide Local Authorities with the knowledge to understand the barriers to implementing water efficient measures within businesses under their jurisdiction and how to help those same businesses save money and water. This, in turn, will enable Local Authorities to meet some of their water and carbon targets.