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• It’s 112 in Phoenix, do you know where your 100 Ways to Save Water list is? http://bit.ly/dw8Ais #
• Now you can place the FREE Water-saving tip widget on your site. Updates a new tip every day. http://bit.ly/bOKGZq #
• If you’re a professional water conservationist and are interested in social media, join our Ning network: http://h2osocialmedia.ning.com/ #
• Grab a cup of Joe and see if you can keep the goldfish from going down the drain in Tip Tank: http://bit.ly/dp9BRV #

How We Landed Water – Use It Wisely in the Wall Street Journal

The WSJ was looking for a story about small business and sustainability. Park Howell and his agency Park&Co, the creators of the Water – Use It Wisely campaign, were asked to share their story about its use of a cool new internal sustainability platform called GreenNurture.com.

The writer also requested a photo for the story. Never one to miss a promotional opportunity, Park stood himself in front of the posters for the Water – Use It Wisely campaign.

The agency is one of the first to adopt this new website/enterprise platform that helps companies large and small become more sustainable through micro-eco actions created out of upping the conversation about being “Green” within the company. The WSJ wanted the story

The team at Park&Co have been using GreenNurture.com to share ideas on the little things we can do to reduce, reuse, and save around the office.

From our production manager: “I know I may look like a vampire but I don’t think the extra lamps are necessary all the time-especially in the morning.”

From our ACD: “Keep the thermostat a couple degrees higher in summer so people aren’t wearing sweaters at work on a 100+ degree day.”

From our bookkeeper: “We should take the recycling of the job jackets one step further to have our ultimate goal be “to be paperless.” We could store all necessary documentation on the server under a file of the job so that both the accounting and job folders could be viewed. Ultimately we could remove those file cabinets and replace them with a green hammock to catch up on “Z’s” for all the extra time we’ll have created.“

From me: “What if we issued just one ream of paper per person per year for basic documents? And then if and when you needed a second ream, you would have to petition for one describing the merits of your need? Would this makes us all think twice about running something through our printers?”

If you haven’t yet checked out GreenNurture.com and what it can mean to your company, utility or municipality relative to reducing waste, recycling, and saving water and money, it’s definitely worth about 20 minutes of your time. That’s all it takes to get your internal eco campaign up and running.

In the meantime, do you want to step up to the “One Ream Per Person Per Year” challenge? It truly monetizes a product that everyone views as a commodity. Think of the money + trees + paper + printer ink + printer power + the cost of recycling + the carbon footprint, you and your company will save just by reframing a ream of paper as something worth vastly more. Scarcity has a way of increasing the value of all items. Basic economics.

Click to visit the site.

You can imagine the gigantic smile on my face when I come across websites like The Green Samaritan, a site inspired by the “Good Samaritan,” but with a green twist. I like it. And I love the fact that they feature our water-saving tip widget from the Water – Use It Wisely campaign prominently on their homepage.

The campaign’s easy-to-use sustainability message found in the widget fits perfectly with Green Sam’s mission of, “Being kind to your environment through refined, renewed and resourceful living.” It’s extremely gratifying when a simple project you spearhead helps others.

Click here to experience the interactive home water audit.

Feel free to add our water-saving tip widget to your site. And while you’re at WaterUseItWisely.com, check out our new interactive home water audit and share it with your peeps. That’s what it’s there for.

Thank you Green Samaritan for helping us to further ignite the growth our water conservation movement.

This post originally appeared in Park Howell’s “Sustainable Storytelling” blog. Park&Co is the sustainable marketing firm that created the Water – Use It Wisely campaign

Throughout the month of June, the Mesa Red Mountain Library, 635 N. Power Road in Mesa, Arizona, will feature a 16-foot tall, 136-gallon water jug pyramid as part of the City’s Water – Use It Wisely campaign. The display represents how much water one person consumes per day in their home.

“This impressive display illustrates the need for all of us to be more aware of how much water each of us uses on a daily basis,” Mesa Conservation Specialist Donna DiFrancesco said. “We hope this urges our customers to be responsible in their water usage to protect this valuable resource.”

Typical residential water usage in Mesa ranges from 80 to 180 gallons of water per person per day, including indoor and outdoor use. Water use is broken down in the following categories:

• Consumption – 6 gallons
• Showers and Baths – 16 gallons
• Toilets – 18 gallons
• Household Cleaning – 22 gallons
• Outdoors – 74 gallons

The campaign recently introduced the Home Water Challenge, an educational video that provides water conservation information, tips and helpful links that show how to conserve water in and around your home. Find it on our site by clicking here.

Participants can then input their monthly water use from their utility bill into a worksheet to see how their own water use stacks up to the average.

Water – Use It Wisely Regional Campaign Partners include the cities of Phoenix, Mesa, Scottsdale, Chandler, Glendale, Tempe, Avondale, El Mirage, Fountain Hills, Peoria, Surprise, and Queen Creek. Additional partners include the Arizona American Water Company, Arizona Municipal Water Users Association, Global Water Resources, Liberty Water Company, and Salt River Project.

By Ian Satter, City of Mesa