Businesses are literally flushing one of their most precious resources down the toilet. A recent study by University of Stellenbosch Business School graduate Gerrie Brink found that in SA, office buildings consume almost half the municipal water supply (even though they make up just 10% of customers). Office bathrooms account for up to 90% of a commercial building's consumption and are also the biggest source of leaks and inefficient water use.
Office canteens, cleaning services, air conditioning and irrigation are the other major water consumers, but Brink found that toilets are by far the biggest. ''If not managed properly, toilets can be a thorn in the side for any facility manager or financial manager'', he says. ''By default a toilet is a mechanism intended to consume water as part of its design and, if not properly maintained, can also waste a lot of water''.
A leak in the men's room may seem a strange thing to stress about, but in many industries, water is central to business operations, and in SA, water shortages are a very real problems. In 2020, two years after Cape Town's 'Day Zero' (when the city was just 90 days away from running out of water) and two years before a similar crisis hit Gqeberha, Stanford University researchers concluded that human-caused climate change made the extreme water events five to six times more likely in the future.
