For the fourth year thousands of cities, businesses, and organizations across the United States are banding together with a single message: Imagine what our lives would be like without water?
This simple little molecule, two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen, is the foundation for all life on our planet. Yet so often we still take it for granted. Each morning we brew a pot of coffee, jump in the shower, and throw on our freshly laundered clothes. Without water none of this is possible.
The goal for this campaign is to inspire appreciation for our most valuable resource and drive conservation focused action. At Banyan Water our mission is to create technology to preserve water, so we are happy to be participating for our third year. In imagining a day without water, we wanted to highlight some of the ways water is important to the Banyan Team. Each and every one of us has a personal connection to this resource that drives us to work in conservation every day.
With our teams based in Texas and California drought has real world implications. “I live out on beautiful Lake Travis in Austin, Texas. When we experienced our severe drought here in 2016 the lake was so low that many restaurants went out of business and all public boat launches closed. What was a beautiful lake turned into a lot of rock” reflects our CEO Gillan Taddune. Although in the time since the lake levels have for the most part recovered, the impact of sustained drought is sad and frightening.
Several members of our team reflected on experiences in water rich environments. “My life has been shaped by my interactions with water from my youth: fishing, sailing, and learning on lakes and rivers. Then I experienced what water scarcity looks like when moving to San Francisco, and how it is still taken for granted by so many even after months without rain. We need to continue to find more responsible ways to manage this resource if we have any hope of giving future generations a fair shot, especially with a changing climate and population growth.” A few of us were lucky enough to spend time on the Great Lakes in our childhoods. Living next to enormous freshwater resources it can be easy to overlook that not all have this luxury. “I’m blessed to have been surrounded by such healthy ecosystems in my upbringing and I’m working as hard as I can to ensure these luxuries are available to others for years to come.
“I sometimes forget what a huge role water plays in almost every aspect of our lives. But when you step back and think about it, every product we touch and every system we rely on, whether its food security, shelter, hygiene, transportation, energy, etc all have a water footprint. Thinking about that makes you realize just how catastrophic pushing the global water crisis to the brink would be. We need solutions, and we need them today. Although we’re not solving all the problems ourselves, we’re providing people actionable information to help them drive better practices. I really hope this year’s ‘Imagine a Day Without Water’ causes people to consider how they could reduce their water demand and implement some strategies around that.”
So how does Total Water Management fit into the water conservation picture? Banyan’s goal is to help our clients understand where they are using the most water and then implement strategies to reduce this. We do this for businesses of all sizes, regions, and industries. We’ve helped schools drive student behavior change, cold storage facilities reduce their cooling water use, and multifamily apartments curb extraneous irrigation use. Every building in the world has a unique water footprint, and so there is no single solution that works for all. Our intelligent system breaks water consumption down to granular levels with real time insights. From there we can identify, implement, track, and verify the initiatives that will have the biggest impact for you. Water conservation for commercial buildings is actually one of the easiest ways property owners and facility managers can lower utility costs and drive NOI growth.
In 2019 one of the areas we’ve been focused on is real-time leak detection. This is one of the simplest ways property owners, facility managers, and sustainability can mitigate risks and dramatically cut costs. When discussing leak detection with people often the first reaction is that this is an ‘insurance policy’, that is nice when you have a leak, but hard to quantify the value beforehand. Luckily, Banyan collects leak data from hundreds of sites in 17 states, and two countries. This data tells a different story, as highlighted in our 2019 YTD Leak Report (Hyperlink). What we’re seeing is that water leaks happen far more often than we realize, because more often than not they are ‘invisible’. This could be a running toilet or dripping faucet, or it could be a break in an underground pipe in your irrigation lines. Either way these costs add up when they arrive on your water bill 60 days later. Banyan’s unique algorithms detect flow signatures that help guide you to where the problem persists that stop water waste in its tracks. We’ve proven time after time these projects pay for themselves faster than many energy conservation projects.
We’re curious how water affects your life! Whether its happy memories from childhood, or a massive leak that cause unexpected costs water is something we each need to think about each and every day. We hope this year on October 23rd you take time to ‘Imagine and World Without Water’ and consider ways you can manage water a little more efficiently! Connect with Banyan on LinkedIn and Twitter using #ValueWater and join in on the conversation.