Manufacturers and hospitality giants: use an integrated approach to saving water that also saves energy, emissions, and cost

In climate crisis discussions, water is quickly becoming as relevant as carbon emissions and energy consumption. The 2018 Day Zero crisis in Cape Town—when water simply ran out for the whole city—is a prime example; local industry had “met” its water targets, suggesting those targets were way off the mark in the first place, and there was a general lack of appreciation for water use on the enterprise side. In Cape Town’s case, a combination of rapid urbanization, high per-capita water consumption, and three years of poor rainfall was also to blame. But, enterprise end-consumers of water must play their part, and in doing so, they’ll find that saving water leads to wider efficiency gains. Water usage is often directly (and always indirectly) connected to energy consumption, especially in the manufacturing and hospitality sector, where water consumption is closely linked to the potential for cost and emissions savings.  

The world’s biggest manufacturing and hospitality firms are proving that water savings also mean energy and cost savings  

The manufacturing and hospitality industries (to call out two of many offenders) are striving to produce better products at lower monetary and environmental costs as their understanding of their water usage increases. Take a pair of jeans, for example, which requires 1,800 gallons of water just to grow the necessary cotton—before even considering the manufacturing process and supply chain. In service industries, from cloud storage to hotel management, direct and indirect water consumption are now very much traceable and quantifiable, and companies can no longer blame waste on outsourced operations. 

ECOLAB has developed a tool to help businesses increase their understanding of what water targets they need to apply, implement water-saving solutions, and manage water more effectively across different sites. Seventy-five percent (75%) of enterprises tell ECOLAB that they have water goals in place, but a staggering 82% lack the tools to achieve them. David Martin, Vice President, Government Relations at ECOLAB, built on these numbers and cited four key examples at a recent Microsoft sustainability event, emphasizing the wider benefits that optimizing water consumption can have on energy and cost savings: 

• Anheuser-Busch (AB) InBev, the brewer, formed a global partnership for water and hygiene services. The partnerships are competitor consortiums that represent the dire need that brewers face to better-optimize the industry’s water consumption used for heat transfer, cleaning, and other non-ingredient uses. Breweries installed sensors in process cooling towers and subsequently connected them to Azure cloud. Through competitor networks, best– and worst–performing operations were identified to enable industry-wide sharing of best practices, translating into energy savings and $25 million per year saved for AB InBev, in addition to 1 million cubic meters of water. 
• ADM, a grain producer, is pushing a similar initiative of installing sensors in its cooling systems, which led to water savings of 8.7 million cubic meters per year, representing $28.3 million. 
• In the hotel industry, kitchens account for the majority of the approximately 300 liters of water used per guest per day—not the showers or the laundry, as one might expect. Hilton wanted to understand its consumption better and optimize the way it prepared food and cleaned catering equipment and environments. It also boasted of an important ability to predict high-risk areas for Legionella via predictive analytics capabilities. 
• A Northern European power industry client implemented a cooling system solution by increasing the concentration of water in its systems, which improved heat transfer and energy efficiency and saved $3.5 million per year. 

Emerging technology and services are placing a strong focus on water; they’re equally applicable to enterprise settings as they are to sustainable development projects 

IBM’s platform for water management combines its cloud capability with SweetSense Inc. internet of things (IoT) sensor technology—improving water management in Kenya through a better understanding of supply and demand patterns. The platform also takes in groundwater extraction and borehole management data, leading to an interactive map used for Kenya’s domestic and international water management. 

Although this IBM undertaking constitutes a sustainable development project, it echoes many of the projects and goals discussed by ECOLAB. Enterprises have at their fingertips the means to monitor, analyze, and optimize their water consumption better and then reap the cost, efficiency, and environmental benefits. 

Service providers have the capabilities and networks to develop water–saving projects such as IBM’s or ECOLAB’s for the same benefits; all it takes is the right combination of platform and technology expertise. 

HFS’ bank of AI use cases includes two applicable achievements: one case minimized its revenue loss due to leakage with flow rate and pipeline monitoring. It now detects issues in two days versus three to four weeks, resulting in efficiency gains and predictive maintenance improvements. The second case allowed a utilities firm to improve customer satisfaction by detecting and preventing leaks better. Aqualytics’ is one example of a vendor incorporating machine learning to monitor and communicate water-based operational performance.  

The Bottom Line: There’s a close nexus between water and energy consumption; water-thirsty manufacturers and hospitality firms must bring their water and energy data together to compound the potential cost savings. 

Whether you’re a manufacturer directly consuming water, an enterprise sourcing a heap of cloud power, or a data center needing to cool a facility—saving water offers a triple-whammy:

• Save the direct cost of the water. 
• Improve resource consumption and sustainability. 
• Save energy as a result of more optimized water usage in your processes. 

The business benefits of sustainability measures are becoming clearer; only the true laggards think it’s a costly business that’s only good for PR. But among the classic measures of emissions reduction and corporate social responsibility (CSR), more nuanced approaches like saving water can compound themselves by further reducing energy consumption and costs. Successful enterprise water-reduction initiatives are plentiful, as are the partners that helped them; these partners are ready to build further projects—whether it’s ECOLAB, IBM, or anyone with IoT capability and a platform to integrate and analyze the data.