Water savings for businesses: a 7-step guide to using and paying less
Water savings in a company is a programme with two levers: using less water and paying less for it. Here are the 7 steps, from baseline to tariff, what each front delivers according to T&D's data and how to prove the savings under the IPMVP protocol.
By T&D Sustentável 12 min read
In this article · 8
Water savings in a company is a programme, not a campaign: measure consumption, cut losses, adjust equipment and processes, reuse water, check the tariff and prove the result. Done in that order, it cuts the volume consumed and the amount billed at the same time; in the full SEA 360º programme, the reduction observed by T&D reaches up to 70%. This guide shows the 7 steps, what each one delivers and how to measure savings in a way that stands up to an audit.
In short:
- Water savings in a company has two levers: using less water (consumption) and paying less for it (tariff).
- The 7 steps: baseline, metering by area, leaks, equipment, processes and people, reuse and tariff.
- T&D’s figures are of different kinds: up to 70% is the ceiling of the full programme, about 10% is the average from monitoring alone and 16.5% is the reduction Rede D’Or published across 40 hospitals.
- Savings are proven under the IPMVP protocol, against an adjusted baseline, and not against last year’s bill.
- ISO 46001 organises water efficiency as a management system, and GRI 303 is the standard for reporting water withdrawal, discharge and consumption.
Why should a company save water?
For three reasons that add up:
- A cost that grows with volume. Brazil’s Sanitation Law (Law No. 11,445/2007, art. 30) provides for tariffs by user category, spread over increasing consumption bands. With many utilities, the cubic metre gets more expensive as volume rises, and sewage is charged on the water volume. Each cubic metre saved takes the bill out of the most expensive bands.
- Operational risk. Hospitals, hotels, schools and factories stop without water. Whoever measures tank levels and hourly consumption sees a shortage coming and decides in time, including when to call a water tanker. See the consequences of a water crisis for business.
- Accountability. Clients, investors and auditors ask about water. The GRI 303 standard, used in sustainability reports, asks companies to report water withdrawal (303-3), discharge (303-4) and consumption (303-5). Rede D’Or, for example, published the result of its water efficiency project in its GRI-standard report.
What are the 7 steps of water savings in a company?
| Step | What to do | What it delivers |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Baseline | Gather 12 months of invoices and work out consumption per day and per unit of the operation | The starting point for measuring any savings |
| 2. Metering by area | Meters per area and telemetry with alerts | Where the water goes, and when |
| 3. Leaks | Night-time consumption, the meter test and leak detection | The fastest cut, without changing operations |
| 4. Equipment | Adjust valves, fit aerators and flow regulators, control pressure | Savings that do not depend on habit |
| 5. Processes and people | Written procedures, targets by area and training | Savings that last after the campaign |
| 6. Reuse | Rainwater and reuse water for non-potable uses | Less water bought from the network |
| 7. Tariff | Check category, number of billing units and the sewage charge | A smaller bill for the same consumption |
1. Build the baseline
Without a starting point, there is no way to say whether savings happened. Gather the invoices for the last 12 months, ideally 24, note consumption in m³ and the days of each reading, and work out the daily average. Then divide by what drives the operation: occupied beds, meals served, students, guests, tonnes produced. That indicator shows whether the company uses more or less water to do the same thing.
A shortcut for the first conversation: work out the average of the three lowest-consumption months of the year and compare it with the others. The excess over that average is what is at stake, and it splits into leaks, use that can be adjusted and consumption the operation really needs.
2. Meter by area
A single meter for the whole building mixes everything into one number. Meters per area, such as the kitchen, laundry, cooling tower, irrigation and each building, show where the water goes. A weekly reading already shows the jump weeks before the invoice; telemetry shows it hour by hour and warns right away.
Night-time consumption is the most revealing indicator: with operations stopped, it should fall close to zero. T&D’s TDRR watches tanks, pumps and hourly and night-time consumption, sends alerts by app, SMS, email and WhatsApp and delivers an average 10% cut in consumption from monitoring alone. See how remote water consumption monitoring works.
3. Eliminate leaks
This step pays most at the start, because it cuts a loss that runs 24 hours a day and gives the operation nothing. The manual Conservação e reúso da água em edificações, by Brazil’s National Water Agency (ANA) with FIESP and SindusCon-SP, estimates 144 litres a day for a single toilet with a visible trickle. In a building with dozens of washrooms, kitchens and buried mains, losses add up in silence.
The routine has three layers: the meter test with everything shut, a daily look at night-time consumption and, when the leak is hidden, a search with equipment. T&D’s Electronic leak detection locates the spot with geophone surveys, thermography and hydro-pneumatic testing, without breaking walls. The step by step is in hidden water leak: 7 signs and how to find it.
4. Adjust equipment and pressure
Adjusted equipment saves even when someone forgets. A flush valve pressed for 6 seconds uses 10 to 14 litres, according to a São Paulo state government leaflet; badly adjusted, it uses more at every press, hundreds of times a day in a commercial building. The basic list:
- adjusted flush valves and dual-flush cisterns;
- aerators on taps and flow regulators on showers;
- taps with timers or sensors in high-traffic washrooms;
- urinals without a constant trickle;
- a pressure-reducing valve where the mains arrive strong, because high pressure increases flow and strains joints.
In SEA 360º, this stage is the standardisation of every point of use with T&D’s own technology, followed by functional tests. The most common sources of loss are in the four invisible causes of water waste.
5. Rewrite processes and involve people
Much of a company’s water runs through routines nobody reviews: cleaning, kitchen, laundry, watering, maintenance. Washing a floor with a hose for 15 minutes takes 279 litres; washing dishes with the tap half open for the same time, 117, which falls to 20 with scraping first and the tap closed, according to the same São Paulo state government leaflet. Write the procedure, train whoever carries it out and measure the effect.
People make the savings last. What works:
- reminders at the points of use, next to the tap and the toilet;
- a simple channel for anyone to report a leak;
- targets by area, with consumption shared month by month;
- recognition for the teams and ideas that cut consumption;
- a conversation with suppliers and service providers that use water inside the company, such as cleaning and gardening.
Tips for daily use, with the litres behind each habit, are in how to save water: 15 tips.
6. Reuse water
Not every use needs drinking water. Toilets, floor and outdoor washing, irrigation and cooling towers can use rainwater or reuse water, in a separate and labelled network. Law No. 14,546/2023 amended Brazil’s Sanitation Law so that the federal government encourages the use of rainwater and the non-potable reuse of grey water, and the ABNT NBR 16783:2019 standard covers alternative non-potable water sources in buildings.
Reuse requires design, treatment suited to the use and maintenance, so it comes after the steps that cut waste: there is no point treating water to replace a leak. At T&D, reuse, automation and rainwater projects belong to SEA+, contracted after the first results of SEA 360º. The step by step for industry is in water reuse in industry.
7. Check the tariff
The bill depends on volume and on the price of each cubic metre, and the price depends on the classification: category of use, number of billing units and how sewage is charged. Law No. 11,445/2007 provides that billing considers user categories, increasing consumption bands and a minimum consumption quantity. A wrong registration weighs every month, for years, without showing as an error on the invoice.
The error runs both ways. With fewer billing units than reality, consumption piles into the most expensive bands; with more billing units, the added-up minimum charge exceeds real consumption, and the company pays for cubic metres it did not use. T&D’s Water tariff consulting reviews that classification and runs the process with the water utility, from opening to the new tariff taking effect; the preliminary analysis starts with a recent invoice. To read the bill line by line, see how to read a company water bill.
How much can a company save?
It depends on the starting point: the more leaks, badly adjusted equipment and uncontrolled processes, the bigger the gain. The figures published by T&D are of different kinds, and should not be mixed:
| Reference | Reduction in consumption | What the figure is |
|---|---|---|
| SEA 360º, full programme | Up to 70% | Ceiling observed by T&D, not an average |
| La Patria Café e Bistrô | 35% | Reported by the client, in a testimonial published by T&D |
| Rede D’Or, 40 hospitals | 16.5%, with 260,000 m³ saved in 2025 | Result published in the network’s sustainability report, GRI standard |
| TDRR, monitoring alone | About 10% | Average observed by T&D |
The Rede D’Or case is the strongest because it is not T&D signing it: it is in a third party’s report, under the GRI standard. The full story is in the Rede D’Or case: 16.5% less water in 40 hospitals.
How do you prove the savings happened?
Water savings cannot be measured directly: they are water that was not consumed. So the fair comparison is not with last year’s bill, but with how much the company would have consumed without the programme, under today’s conditions. If occupancy rose, production doubled or the summer was hotter, the raw bill hides or invents savings.
The international IPMVP protocol, maintained by the Efficiency Valuation Organization (EVO), solves this with an adjusted baseline: consumption in the reference period, corrected for the variables that changed. EVO’s documents make clear that the methods used for energy apply equally to water. At T&D, the statistical baseline is built from the site’s consumption history and adjusted by multivariate regression, taking into account the variables that influence consumption in each operation. That is what makes the result auditable rather than an estimate.
Which measures deliver quick results?
While the full programme takes shape, ten measures pay off from the first billing cycle:
- The meter test overnight or at the weekend.
- Repairs to leaking toilets, taps, float valves and flexible hoses.
- Adjustment of flush valves.
- Aerators on taps and flow regulators on showers.
- Broom, squeegee and floor scrubber instead of the hose.
- Dry scraping of dishes before washing.
- Dishwashers and washing machines only with full loads.
- Watering early in the morning or late in the afternoon.
- Reminders at points of use and a channel to report leaks.
- A weekly meter reading, logged in a spreadsheet.
Is it worth hiring a water efficiency company?
It is when the company gains what it does not have on its own: technology, a dedicated team and metering that stands up to an audit. Before hiring, ask the proposal to state how savings will be measured (the protocol, the baseline and the variables), whether implementation stops operations, who handles maintenance and how often reports arrive.
T&D’s SEA 360º has two phases. Implementation, which requires no construction works, covers the IPMVP baseline, efficiency technology, standardisation of points of use, electronic leak detection, repairs and staff training. Ongoing management covers technical support, maintenance and monthly reports on financial, operational and ESG performance. T&D was named the No. 1 startup in Water and Sanitation in the 100 Open Startups ranking in 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025.
Frequently asked questions
How much water can a company save?
It depends on the starting point. In the full SEA 360º programme, the reduction observed by T&D reaches up to 70%; with monitoring alone, the average is about 10%; at Rede D’Or, the reduction published in the GRI report was 16.5% across 40 hospitals. The more waste at the start, the bigger the gain.
Where should a company start saving water?
With the baseline and the leaks. Gather 12 months of invoices, work out consumption per day and per unit of the operation and run the meter test with everything shut. Leaks are the fastest loss to cut, because they give the operation nothing.
Does saving water in a company require construction works?
Mostly not. Repairing leaks, adjusting equipment, procedures and reviewing the tariff require no works, and neither does the SEA 360º implementation. Reuse and rainwater harvesting do: they need design, a separate network and treatment.
How do you calculate water savings?
Compare consumption after the programme with the adjusted baseline, which is what the company would have consumed without it, under the same conditions. The international IPMVP protocol describes how to make that adjustment; comparing only with the previous year’s bill distorts the result when occupancy, production or weather change.
Do water savings count for ESG?
They do. The GRI 303 standard asks companies to report water withdrawal, discharge and consumption, and a reduction measured under IPMVP enters the report as verifiable data. Rede D’Or published the result of its water efficiency project in its sustainability report under the GRI standard.
Sources
- ISO 46001:2019, Water efficiency management systems (ISO)
- IPMVP Core Concepts, Efficiency Valuation Organization (EVO)
- GRI 303: Water and Effluents 2018 (Global Reporting Initiative)
- Law No. 11,445 of 5 January 2007, art. 30, in Portuguese
- Law No. 14,546 of 4 April 2023, in Portuguese
- CBIC: ABNT NBR 16782 and 16783 published and NBR 15527 revised (2019), in Portuguese
- Conservação e reúso da água em edificações (ANA, FIESP and SindusCon-SP, 2005), leak loss table, reproduced in Souza et al., 21st Brazilian Water Resources Symposium (ABRHidro, 2015), in Portuguese
- Water-saving leaflet by SAAE Cordeirópolis, with São Paulo state government data, published by the PCJ basin committees (2014), in Portuguese
- The Rede D’Or case: 16.5% less water in 40 hospitals, with figures from the network’s sustainability report (GRI standard, 2025)
- T&D solutions: SEA 360º (70% ceiling in the full programme), TDRR (10% average from monitoring alone) and IPMVP measurement
