17.11.2020
Climate change and rise of water bills
We must pay close attention to climate change, an alarming issue that affects us all. We are constantly over-consuming available resources which are becoming rarer every day. One vital example of resources is Water. Consequently, we are responsible for the severe end-results that are costing us the environment. With this issue, comes the cost of water and its distribution in which, day by day, becomes increasingly costly. In fact, water is becoming a scarce resource, which is actually catching up on electricity bills. This is an urgent matter which we need to swiftly act upon.
Increasing trend in water cost
To tackle this, many innovators around the world are leveraging Industry 4.0’s emerging technologies to contribute and compensate for climate change. Research proved that we can benefit from digital technology in enhancing our practices towards the environment and become more sustainable. These technologies can also acquaint us in optimizing our habits towards awareness in sustainability. In the topic around global water issues, many initiatives emerged as green innovations. Climate change advocates and entrepreneurs succeeded in giving us interesting solutions to begin tackling this issue and fast. These solutions suggest that we ought to keep track of our consumption to reduce our water footprint. They range from automatic water pipe shutters, leak detectors, and IoT water valves).
We often overlook the importance of controlling our water consumption. From an economic point of view, it becomes more expensive especially in countries where water isn’t free. Environmentally, it’s critical to the environment as water is becoming scarcer.
Water meters typically send all data to the water provider. As property owners, water bills would be paid without having deep insights about consumption behaviors. With smart metering, end-users would understand more the flow of their building’s consumption. An article by IoTaCommunications suggests that when we start measuring our behavior with water, become more aware of it, then we could improve it.
“Water is an important metric for sustainability because it is a primary component of everyday usage in most facilities”.
An expensive water bill leaves us in confusion and raises doubts as sometimes the bill does not reflect our water consumption. But a solution can avoid a few factors such as:
Recurring plumbing costs: while It is time consuming in finding the right plumbing service at the right price, that’s another bill added. This is not the case when plumbing activities are scheduled ahead of time to make sure everything is running smoothly.
Water damage costs: due to unmonitored water flow, we tend to learn less on when to schedule maintenance until the damage occurs. Damages could occur unexpectedly at any given time. Another hassle is fixing the damage done by a burst pipe, moldy walls due to humidity and leaks. Having this issue over and over only keeps adding expenses to our daily life.
The blame on tenants: if the property owner rents out his or her flats, they could blame tenants and let them bear the heavy costs. This could create a constant conflict and bad news for the property owners as the conflict continues to become routine.
Economical factor: as consumers we can not actually control this, but at least we can optimize our water usage so we don’t fall into the over-consumption pit. Many studies have shown that the price of water will only increase as long as we don’t act swiftly. Over the course of 10 years, on average, we were struck by a water cost that has only doubled. With that, came water related damages.
In fact, IoT has a certain impact on the environment in the road to sustainability, BBVA has written an article that showcases the opportunities towards tackling climate change with advanced technologies in IoT. As individuals we can not fathom our water consumption out of thin air. One start up, Shayp, has come up with a rather logical yet insightful solution to help us start tackling this issue as soon as possible. The innovation offers a solution to identify water leaks, lower the risk of water damage, and contribute to saving millions of drinking water on the long run.
To begin tackling climate change, it’s important to begin with ourselves as businesses and consumers: what practices we need to change to keep a healthy infrastructure? How can we change our ways to preserve a stable water consumption lifestyle?
There must be a sense of urgency in our behavior towards water consumption. Monitoring how much water is consumed can be a positive first step towards sustainable habits to know beforehand how and when to react to consequences. And with that, we turn our attention towards other daily life consumptions.
If you are interested in getting to know Shayp’s software and hardware, click here to learn more, or contact us and we will be happy to assist you.