Business Stream awards £100k to Scottish public sector water efficiency projects

Business Stream has awarded the Scottish public sector £100,000 to spend on water efficiency projects.

Nine schemes were selected by a judging panel under Business Stream’s Public Sector Scotland (PSS) Water Efficiency Fund – part of a commitment made by the company to support public bodies across Scotland to deliver water efficiency projects designed to deliver environmental and financial savings.

The winners were:

Glasgow City Council who will use the funding to install rainwater collection butts to feed planters at early learning centres. In addition to helping to educate young children about the importance of saving water, the use of sustainably sourced water will help to reduce overall consumption levels;

Dundee & Angus College who will install waterless urinals at two campus sites in Tayside to lower consumption levels and help meet the college’s environmental targets;

University of Glasgow who will use the money to fit chiller units that will recirculate cooling water and reduce water loss;

NHS Tayside who will undertake work to improve efficiencies within its boiler and steam room to save around 1,900 cubic m water a year. Additionally, the site is introducing rainwater harvesting for use in the toilets;

West Dunbartonshire Council will install urinal controls in buildings to deliver efficiency and environmental savings for the council;

Glasgow Kelvin College who is using the award to fund enhanced audits across a number of campus sites to better track water use and identify opportunities to make savings;

Edinburgh Council who will use the funds to purchase portable flow meters to help proactively manage water use at its sites and help drive a business case for purchasing additional automatic meter reading (AMR) equipment and, separately, will undertake a project to install urinal controls within a secondary school to reduce water wastage; and

Edinburgh College will use the funding to undertake a full water efficiency audit at one of its sites to identify water conservation solutions to help reduce overall consumption levels.

In 2021, Business Stream announced that it has saved Scotland’s public sector over £1m in water costs during the first year of its three-year contract. It said just under £1.4m of savings were delivered to the sector through efficiency measures, helping to save 885m litres of water.