U.S. commercial buildings can collectively save up to 28 billion gallons of water annually using a new suite of tools co-developed by AT&T and Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), the organizations claim.
The Building Water Efficiency toolkit is the result of data and lessons from pilot projects that ran across the U.S. during the summer and fall of 2012. The toolkit gives organizations simple, cost-effective resources to build their own water efficiency programs and includes both technical and management tools to design, implement and document water savings. The combination of tools can be used to create the business case for investments in efficient water management.
For example, buildings with cooling towers typically use 28 percent of their daily water use for cooling — they could reduce that water demand by 14-40 percent with the toolkit.
“People knew these cooling systems use a lot of energy, but nobody had ever focused on how much water they guzzle, or how we could reduce that ‘aqua-print’,” said Tom Murray, Vice President of Corporate Partnerships at EDF. “Even we were surprised by what we were able to achieve with AT&T. It’s a huge opportunity for companies to save water, save money and help out the communities where they operate.”
For its own operations, AT&T says it identified water savings opportunities of 14-40 percent per pilot facility and did so in a way that also made business sense. One cooling tower filtration system upgrade costs less than $100,000 to install but promises more than $60,000 in annual water and sewer savings — paying for itself in less than two years, and a minor $4,000 equipment upgrade to expand free air cooling promises nearly $40,000 in annual savings.
These savings — deployed company-wide — add up. Through free air cooling and optimized cooling towers, AT&T says it aims to reduce its approximately one billion gallon annual cooling tower water use by 150 million gallons per year by 2015. Cooling tower water use accounts for approximately 30 percent of AT&T’s 3.3 billion gallons of annual water use.
“Thirty-one of our top water consuming facilities are in water stressed regions,” explained John Schinter, AT&T Executive Director of Energy. “We couldn’t wait until a drought put a strain on our operations; we needed to manage risk from water scarcity and increasing water costs today. EDF helped us find ways to do so that were good for the communities where we operate and that were financially sound.”
To further its water efforts and collaboration with EDF, AT&T is hosting EDF Climate Corps fellows for the fourth summer in a row. One fellow is focused exclusively on continuing to realize water and energy savings from free air cooling, while another fellow is helping with a regional outreach program to share the tools and findings with organizations in water stressed areas.
AT&T was recently ranked #1 on Corporate Responsibility Magazine’s 13th Annual 100 Best Corporate Citizens List. AT&T was also included in the 2012 Dow Jones Sustainability North America Index.
Get the latest insights, trends, and innovations to help position yourself at the forefront of sustainable business leadership—delivered straight to your inbox.
Founder & Principal Consultant, Hower Impact
Mike Hower is the founder of Hower Impact — a boutique consultancy delivering best-in-class strategic communication advisory and support for corporate sustainability, ESG and climate tech.
Published Aug 22, 2013 3am EDT / 12am PDT / 8am BST / 9am CEST