“With tough financial and environmental challenges facing our customers, saving energy, water and money for our tenants and residents is a key focus.

We made the best use of our resources and added value by installing the free water saving devices to the homes we manage. By bringing together the right people, at the right time, we have focused our efforts on joint activities that have had the greatest impact. Plugin wouldn’t have been a success if it wasn’t for the continuous support and guidance from Environment Agency, Severn Trent Water & Global Action Plan. The Plugin Project ethos of collaborative and partnership working is embodied by all partners, staff and tenants.”

Wolverhampton Homes have delivered Plugin through:

Installation of water-saving products

We fit energy and water saving products for free into void properties, homes undergoing Decent Homes investment and during routine repairs work. So far we have retrofitted water saving measures in over 1,000 properties through Plugin.

We work with tenants and give them the option of requesting a selection of free energy and water saving kits to kick-start their steps in improving their environmental footprint.

EcoTeams

We hold EcoTeams meetings. EcoTeams are short, fun gatherings where groups of tenants and employees can come together. They are a platform to creatively educate groups through fun activities such as water and appliance games to influence behaviour change.

We have set up a Special Interest Group of tenants and residents to help shape our service on energy matters. We have also held two workshops on energy and water saving products and have trained 99 staff members, 21 partner employees and 63 tenants.

Alvina trained one of their young people to use the EcoTeams games in a ‘Get Together’ for 30 other young people. In this way the young person was able to develop their facilitation skills and share pro-environmental behaviour ideas with their peer group.

Through Plugin Wolverhampton Homes have been able to:

• Increase awareness of energy and water efficiency measures and reduction in utility bills.
• Help our tenants / employees become more involved and develop a better understanding/ knowledge of environmental issues.
• Encourage changes in behaviour towards environmental issues.
• Organise more events to engage and interact with our tenants and staff.

We’d really encourage other social housing providers in the region to take part.

Plugin partners receiving the Community Engagement Award from Brian Blessed at the Sustainable Housing Awards

The comments from the judges were that

“The scheme is innovative in that it involved training maintenance staff. We liked that it focused on water, and also the way it quantified how much water has been used.”

It was a great way to celebrate what had been achieved.

Plugin is pleased to be shortlisted for the CIPR PRide 2012 Midlands “Public Sector” award

CIPR CEO, Jane Wilson MCIPR, commented: “The CIPR PRide Awards celebrate the best PR and communications campaigns and teams from the profession across the UK. To be shortlisted for a CIPR PRide Award demonstrates exemplary achievement, impact and value – immediately putting your work in the spotlight. The sheer number of high quality entries received this year, especially when things are still pretty tough out there economically, is testament to a thriving nationwide industry. Congratulations for reaching this stage and the best of luck for the awards presentation evenings.”

The judging process for the PRide Awards is rigorous with a national panel of industry experts assessing the shortlisted entries and choosing the winners. The 2012 Chairs of Judges, Gill Dandy FCIPR, Senior Consultant at The Centre for Strategy and Communication, and Chris Genasi FCIPR, Senior Consultant at APCO Worldwide, assisted in ensuring a fair and consistent judging process.

Gill Dandy, commented: “I would like to congratulate all of the individuals and teams that have been shortlisted across the twelve regions and nations in the UK. The standard of entries continues to improve year on year which demonstrates an increasingly vibrant public relations profession.”

The winners of the 2012 Midlands CIPR PRide Awards will be announced on 2 November 2012. We’re pleased that the hard work from all of Plugin’s partners has been recognised.

Next, a rapping Camel, GabiH20, who pursuades children to think about the water they use when washing and brushing teeth. The camel caught the attention of a passing 7-year old while I was watching it, which I guess is the target audience.

I must admit to not being hugely pursuaded by a neurotic bucket – surely the message is that it’s normal to want to use water wisely?

What do you think?

What does Plugin offer housing providers?

• Free water saving devices
• Training for housing providers on how to fit simple water efficiency devices in homes
• Help to organise behaviour change workshops for tenants

Aims of the workshop

In 2012/13 we would like involve more social housing providers. During the workshop:

• We will explain the programme so far, and how it benefits social housing providers and their tenants
• Existing social housing partners will their share their experiences
• We will explain how you can get involved in 2012

The event will provide an excellent opportunity for networking, where you will have the opportunity to meet existing partners and hear their lessons learnt throughout the project.

Lunch is also provided.

Workshop details

Date and time: Monday 25th June 2012, 12.00pm – 3.15pm

Location: Severn Trent Centre, 2 Johns Street, Coventry CV1 2LZ

Organisers: Severn Trent Water and the Environment Agency

To book a place

To book your places at the workshop please reply to daryl.fossick@severntrent.co.uk by Thursday 7th June 2012

“the biggest and most widely celebrated global day for positive environmental action.”

This year’s theme is: “Green Economy – does it include you?”, where a green economy is described as one that results in:

“improved human well-being and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities.”

This is something that Plugin supports, by addressing scarcity issues such as water and energy and supporting steps to make social housing more water and energy-efficient.

Ideas for World Environment Day

Here are some ideas to promote water and energy-saving on or around 5 June 2012:

• Tell people about the free water saving products that are available from their water company.
• Have a display table in a well used place, using engaging materials like the free EcoTeams games, to grab people’s attention
• Run an event at work. Download a free guide to holding an eco event in your workplace from Global Action Plan.
• Check out the community and educational facilities available from Severn Trent Water and South Staffs Water.

Have fun and make a difference!

Estimates are that this is already saving enough water to meet the daily needs of 308 people. That’s almost 40,000 litres of water a day, equivalent to 4,387 average sized buckets, 197 large water butts or 165 wheelie bins.

Plugin is saving 165 wheelie bins of water each day

Water saving products installed

So far, 3,864 items have been fitted:

With installations now part of routine work we should see these figures continue to rise.

Edited on 22 May: Water saving incorrectly stated as 4,000 litres per day, rather than 40,000

Summer rain vs winter rain

Soil can only hold a certain amount of water, and it needs to be wet all the way down for rainwater to make its way down through the soil to reach aquifers (underground rocks where water is held in tiny holes in the rock).

During the growing season soils tend to dry out due to warmer air temperatures and because of plants taking up moisture as they grow. This drying is referred to as ‘soil moisture deficit‘ and any rain which does fall will go towards topping up the moisture that’s ‘missing’ in the soil. Only once the soil is full will rainfall start to percolate further into the underlying rocks.

Type of rain – downpour or shower

Because moisture is absorbed slowly into the ground, most of the water from very heavy rain will also run off into rivers. It’s better to have an inch of rain spread over several days, rather than a few hours.

Overall trend

One wet month can’t make up for several dry months. Again, according to the Met Office:

“13 of the last 24 months have seen less than 75% of average rainfall, and 6 months have seen less than 50%. Only 2 months – June 2011 and August 2010, have been significantly wetter than average.”

Whilst researching this blog I found a very useful explanation by the BBC – How much rain is needed to ease the drought?, which includes calculations for the South East, as well as a handy diagram about how groundwater supplies are replenished.

In short, despite the rain it’s still important to save water.

(Occasional swearing, so close your ears if you don’t want to hear that!)

How Tom got through the day:

• Wash-up by hand and rinse using a squirty bottle
• Instead of a bath have a sponge bath
• Choose when to flush the toilet
• With some grumpiness, adding to the ‘dramatic tension’ of the film

Thanks to Waterwise for making me aware of the video. And well done Rory and Tom.

NB – many people in the world have to survive on less than 20 litres of water each per day and the charity WaterAid is working to improve that.

Firstly, electric showers have to heat water from the cold supply up to a comfortable shower temperature (about 40 degrees centigrade), which takes a lot of energy. Even at a rating of 7.5-10 kilowatts this means that electric showers can only handle a relatively low flow of water through them, from 3-9 litres per minute, with an average flow of 6 litres per minute, according to a survey by Waterwise. Since most water efficient shower heads and flow regulators are set to a flow rate of 7.5-8 litres per minute there are no savings to be made by fitting these to an electric shower.

Secondly, there have been concerns about possible damage to showers due to any flow restriction devices.

So, electric showers already fall into the “water efficient” range, which is great for residents to know. However, at 7.5-10 kilowatts electric showers use electricity faster than any other electrical item in the home. One unit of electricity (one kilowatt hour) will power a 40 watt lightbulb for 24 hours. It would only power a 10 kW electric shower for 6 minutes. So, even with an electric shower, saving water through shorter showers will also save money.