Water reviews, policies and action plans

Because your business may use water for a number of different purposes, you should try to avoid an ad hoc approach to improving water efficiency. It is much more efficient to develop a business-wide water policy that includes all of your water needs.

Adopting a systematic approach can also help you to:

• identify all of the achievable savings
• avoid the exercise becoming a one-off 'purge'
• pursue ongoing savings
• ensure staff are motivated to help
• implement ideas more easily
• make sure the programme doesn't lose momentum and disappear

You can manage your water use by adopting a systematic approach that includes:

• assessing how much water your business uses
• creating a water use policy or incorporating information into a more general environmental policy
• setting up a water reduction plan that defines who will be involved, what they will do and how they will communicate progress
• identifying and selecting the most appropriate water efficiency measures
• setting environmental targets and objectives
• reviewing performance of the water reduction plan and programme
• reporting results to internal and external stakeholders

If your business has an environmental management system (EMS) - or you're setting one up - you should use it to manage your water use.