Water Efficiency for Commercial and Industrial Southern Africa

As water scarcity and wastewater discharge costs continue to rise across Southern Africa, businesses in the industrial and commercial sectors face increasing pressure to optimise water usage. Many regions also experience unreliable water supply, making the need for water efficiency even more urgent.

This innovative project is designed to help companies like yours drastically reduce water consumption and associated costs while contributing to long-term sustainability. By taking part, you will receive expert guidance and hands-on support to enhance your water management practices.

What the Project Offers:

• Expert Guidance: Over the course of 14 months, you will be supported by qualified experts who will guide you through a series of workshops, individual site visits, and consultations.
• Permanent installation of water meters sponsored by the project: 1-2 water meters will be installed by the appointed experts at your facility in strategic locations.
• Actionable Insights: You will learn how to measure and monitor water consumption and wastewater discharge, implement behaviour changes, and optimise your processes to achieve measurable water savings.
• Custom Solutions: Each company will develop a tailored water management plan with the experts, outlining both short-term and long-term strategies for achieving water efficiency goals.
• Sustained Impact: You will develop a water policy to maintain focus on water efficiency beyond the project’s duration, ensuring lasting improvements.

Key Benefits for Your Company:

• Reduce operational costs associated with water and wastewater.
• Enhance your environmental sustainability efforts.
• Join a community of forward-thinking businesses that are leading the way in water resilience.
• Gain exposure by presenting your water-saving results at a closing conference with key industry stakeholders and decision-makers.

Limited Spaces Available! We are looking for eight companies from Southern Africa to join this transformative project. If you are ready to take the first step toward water resilience and sustainability, express your interest in the project now and stand a chance to become part of this exciting initiative.

Who can participate:

Countries:  South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe

Company profile:

• Manufacturing companies (e.g. food processing, animal feed manufacturing, beverage manufacturing, metal processing, textile manufacturing). Water use requirements: Your company must use water for production processes (e.g. washing, cleaning, product integration).
• Commercial sector (e.g. shopping malls, private hospitals, commercial buildings, private schools, housing complexes, office blocks).

Preliminary timeline for project implementation and your involvement:

• 23 May 2025: Deadline for the submission of interest to participate. Following your submission, we will contact you to arrange an introductory meeting to assess your eligibility for participation.
• 30 June 2025: Deadline for the selection of a maximum of eight eligible companies for participation in the project. We will admit the first eight eligible companies identified to the programme.
• Mid-August 2025: You will participate in a water use efficiency workshop in Johannesburg in South Africa (Date TBC, in person event only).
• Mid-August-September-November 2025: With expert guidance you will (a) identify one of your facilities (if you have several) for the project (b) develop and sign off on the Water Policy for your facility, (c) attend online meetings with the appointed water efficiency expert, (d) supply existing water use data for your facility to the appointed expert, (e) host the expert for a 2-day site visit to complete your water efficiency assessment and installation of water meters at your facility, and (f) attend a hybrid workshop for the exchange of knowledge between participants.
• December 2025-August 2026: With expert guidance you will (a) implement short-term measures to improve water efficiency as soon as possible, (b) you will develop a site-specific water management plan including medium- and long-term measures, (c) ensure that water consumption is continuously measured and monitored.
• September-October 2026: Evaluation phase. The expert will analyse the collected water consumption data in relation to the measures that you implemented at your facility with you, and we will support you in preparing a presentation for the conference in November 2026.
• November 2026: You will attend one final workshop in Johannesburg where you will share your learnings and plans going forward with the other participants. On the next day you will present your achievements to key industry stakeholders by the closure conference.

Participation in the project is completely free of charge!

Please note that travel costs to the workshops and the conference in Johannesburg must be covered by the participant. As part of this initiative, your company will receive sponsorship for the installation of 1-2 water meters, which will be provided at no cost through the project. In return, we ask that your company commits to publishing their ongoing water savings on the online platform #SurplusWater2025 (https://surpluswater2025.com/case-studies) for a minimum of two years after completion of the project. This will allow us and you to track progress, share successes, and inspire other companies to follow suit in achieving water efficiency.