Water training that generates a financial return

Using water efficiently requires a cultural change in addition to technical solutions. Water education can help develop a water-saving culture – in businesses and communities.

Gerrie Brink, managing director of AQUAffection and founder of the #SurplusWater2025 movement, speaks to WASA about the new training programme.

Reducing water waste starts with monitoring and training. We have created site-specific training programmes with site-specific employees, where they are taught how to monitor usage and identify leaks and inefficiencies in the system.

The data used in training is from that site’s water meter and monitoring system. Monitoring will show the impact that education has on water consumption,” explains Brink.

Skills development matrix

As a bonus, this training can contribute towards a company’s BBBEE scorecard.

“The BBBEE scorecard is a system made up by seven elements, each with certain weighting points. Skills development is a priority element and contributes 25 points towards the BBBEE scorecard,” says Brink.

#SurplusWater2025 offers training that falls under Category E ‘Work Integrated Learning’ of the Skills Development Gerrie Brink, managing director of AQUAffection and founder of the #SurplusWater2025 movement

Expenditure matrix. This involves educational activities that integrate the academic learning of water with its practical application in the workplace.

The training programmes qualify as Skills Development Expenditure because they are:

• external training by an external company

• structured, supervised, experiential learning in the workplace, which may include some institutional instruction. Companies are invoiced for training per site. A training register, certificate of attendance and credits are awarded to each person present at the training session.

Reducing demand

“There is little point in increasing water supply into an inefficient network. While there is a strong focus on water supply issues, there is very little done to address water demand. If we can reduce demand, we can reduce our supply deficit. Education is the very first step in decreasing water waste. Training will illustrate what can be done to save water and what should be prioritised. It helps a company understand its current water footprint,” states Brink.

Brink has geared training towards fostering a passion, respect and understanding of water.

“The aim of this training is action. This training provides people with the tools to address the water crisis from a demand perspective.”

The training includes the following:

• short history of water and where it comes from

• why it is important to monitor and log water usage

• the history and flow profile of the specific site or facility

• how to interpret this data

• how to apply the data to improve and simplify our daily tasks

• identifying options to improve water efficiency and reduce waste

• how actions and decisions contribute to #SurplusWater2025.

Comprising 12 chapters with an intro video, a more comprehensive video, downloadable worksheets and questions at the end of every chapter, the training is interactive and takes about three hours to complete.

It covers a wide variety of topics: from the history of water boards, through desalination to finding water leaks and efficiencies in toilet flushing mechanisms. Certain videos and documents can be white labelled.

The training course called ‘Water Matters 101’ is available on the SurplusWater2025.com website.

“This is likely the only training course where one can prove savings in water (and in money) via monitoring systems. It is set to align everyone in the company to use water efficiently. Efficiency means to effectively cut out waste, without compromising on convenience. Operating efficiently has a direct impact on profits by decreasing overheads and reducing the capital required to provide water backup systems,” states Brink.