Both in the office and at home, people tend to take the importance of water for granted. Water is the most important substance on the planet without a doubt. Most of your body is comprised of it. Just as it is with many things, people do not appreciate water until they are without it. Water shortages are not issues that only plague under-developed nations, they occur everywhere. That is why it is important to try and conserve water whenever possible.

Everyone is probably already familiar with some basic things that they can do to conserve water at home. There’s the old rule that you should not leave the sink running while you are brushing your teeth and many similar ones. But there are things that you can do at the office as well to conserve water and turn your place of work into an eco-friendly one. These changes will not only help to conserve water, they will end up saving you money as well, as water bills can get pretty expensive if you have a big office with a lot of workers.

Here are four steps that you can take in order to ensure that you are doing your part as a company to preserve water.

Switch to Manual Toilets and Sinks

Automatic, sensor-equipped toilets and sinks have been all the rage for a while now. You find them in many restaurants, in airports and even in many office buildings. However, they are not that efficient when taking water consumption into consideration. That’s why the bathroom is probably the number one place of water waste at the office. If you switch back to manual flushing toilets, you will definitely decrease the number of unnecessary flushes that are occurring during the day. It’s also a good idea to add dual-flush toilets to your restrooms if you don’t have them, since there is no reason to flush the same amount of water for liquid and solid wastes.

The same goes for sinks. Get manual sinks that are turned off and on with handles or knobs and you will save on water greatly. Also, you should know that the sinks with the button faucets that turn off slowly are even worse in wasting water than sensor sinks. Switching to regular manual ones is the best option.

Use Your Air Conditioning Water for Other Things

If you have an air conditioning unit in your office, you can “harvest” the water that is used by the unit and use it for other things, such as watering plants around the office. People don’t realise how much water is spent on maintaining plants around the office and gardens outside of the office building. Using this water from the air conditioning units is a great way to recycle water at the workplace.

Go with Water Coolers

Providing your workers with water is the right thing to do, but don’t go with bottled water. It might be less of a hassle to simply have bottled water delivered to you, and it might be easier for your workers to just take a bottle whenever they need one, but it’s not the eco-friendly thing to do. Get some water coolers instead. And you can also buy reusable water bottles for your workers, so that they can simply fill them at the water coolers if they don’t want to have to get up and visit the water cooler every time they want a drink.

Get an Office Dishwasher

Believe it or not, dishwashers waste less water than washing dishes manually. When you are cleaning a coffee cup manually, you are waiting for the water to heat up, washing it and then rinsing it. The dishwasher uses the same water to wash and rinse the entire load.

Of course, the impact of businesses on the water system goes far beyond the amount of water used. According to LaganWater.com, a water treatment company based in Northern Ireland, how a company manages its wastewater is increasingly important as more emphasis is placed on corporate responsibility.

What’s certain is that the issue of reducing costs by using less water and managing waste is one that businesses will have to contend with for a very long time. Therefore, making capital investment sooner is advisable as opposed to the risk of incurring significant legal costs and loss of brand reputation should your business be responsible for preventable contamination of the water system.