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Alliance for Water Efficiency
The Alliance for Water Efficiency (AWE) was formed in 2007 for the purpose of promoting the efficient and sustainable use of water. A 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, it serves as a voice for the long-term protection, conservation, and wise use of water resources, especially drinking water resources.

Headquartered in Chicago, the Alliance focuses on water efficiency and conservation programs and practices, operating primarily in the US and Canada. AWE also works in other parts of the world, including Australia, Jordan, Italy, and the Philippines.

Water conservation and efficiency have lagged behind similar work related to energy. While the public has been aware of the need for energy efficiency for the past three decades, the public has not been generally aware of the importance of the same programs in water. The need for efficiency is apparent in desert and desert-like arid regions, such as Las Vegas and Los Angeles, but less apparent in historically water-rich regions, such as the Pacific Northwest, the Great Lakes and the southeastern U.S. While the need to conserve water is less obvious in these regions, it is no less important or economically beneficial. For this reason, the Alliance for Water Efficiency focuses its outreach on all regions where water conservation can provide benefits to water supplies and reliability, consumers, and the environment.

Board of Directors
Recognizing the complicated array of stakeholders related to water resources, the Alliance has assembled a widely diverse Board of Directors. Its 23 members include representatives from water utilities, industry, local and state government, academia, environmental and energy advocacy, planning agencies, plumbing manufacturers, and retail distributors. Their breadth of perspectives helps define the role and mission of the organization.

Committees
Three committees engage members in collaborative opportunities for cross-fertilization of ideas and best practices. These committees encompass education and outreach, water efficiency research, and water-efficient products. The committees meet face-to-face once each year and by conference calls multiple times per year.

Website
AWE’s website provides a resource library, breaking news items, events, white papers, the Water Efficiency Watch newsletter, the Legislative Watch information page, and a discussion forum.

The Need for Water Conservation
In 2013, water shortages are affecting more than 40 of the 50 states. Causes for these shortages include climate changes, drought, population growth, over-use, new construction, landscapes, and severe constraints on developing new water supplies, largely for reasons of environmental protection. The U.S. EPA has estimated that building new water infrastructure and maintaining the old will require $650 billion by 2020. Each one percent of water saved through conservation could save as much as $6.5 billion.

The Effect of Water Conservation Efforts
A 2009 U.S. Geological Survey report entitled Estimated Water Use in the United States in 2005 shows that water conservation efforts are indeed having an effect, but much more work remains to be done. Agricultural water use showed an eight-percent decline from 2000 to 2005 even while irrigated acreage increased. The demand for water from public supplies was slightly less dramatic than agricultural efficiency improvements. Demand increased by only two percent while the population grew by five percent. As a result of concerted water conservation efforts nationwide, overall demand continues to increase, but at a rate far lower than the rate of population growth, thus showing lower per capita water use.

Programs
To support its mission of promoting the sustainable and efficient use of water, the Alliance supports a number of initiatives. These initiatives, as well as future goals, are outlined in the Alliance’s most recent Strategic Plan.

Technical Assistance
The Alliance provides guidance on planning consumer water conservation programs as well as information on evolving technologies and practices, such as using high-efficiency plumbing and irrigation products, developing water budgets, incorporating efficiency in residential and commercial buildings, designing conservation rates and equitable customer billing, and reducing leakage.

Workshops
The Alliance conducts a number of professional workshops each year to support its technical assistance programs and to inform its stakeholders. Workshop topics include conservation program planning, assessing the economic benefits of conservation programs, elements of non-revenue water management, and designing water utility conservation rates.

Resource Library
The Alliance’s website contains an ever-growing library of research, program and policy information. It is an authoritative source of water efficiency information.

Water Conservation Tracking Tool
The Alliance has developed a proprietary, Excel-based Water Conservation Tracking Tool that enables communities to evaluate water savings, costs, and conservation benefits. It helps assess the economic feasibility of water efficiency in the development of water conservation programs. The tool is free to members.

Home Water Works
In 2012, the Alliance launched consumer water efficiency and conservation web site called Home Water Works. Home Water Works features in-depth information for residential consumers on how to conserve water cost effectively. The site also features the Water Calculator, which quickly estimates water use for a single-family home or apartment based on specific information input by the user.

Plumbing Codes, Standards and Green Building
The Alliance works closely with such organizations as the International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical Officials (IAPMO), the International Code Council (ICC), various committees of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), the US Green Building Council (USGBC), and the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) to ensure that next-generation plumbing codes and standards build appropriate water efficiency specifications into their guidelines.

Market Transformation
Research has shown that communities conserve water when faced with an imminent supply shortage. Such behavioral measures, however, rarely extend beyond acute crises. Changes in plumbing codes and standards, on the other hand, result in quantifiable long-term water savings. Today, consumers can no longer buy high-flow plumbing fixtures or appliances thanks in part to the efforts of the Alliance and its members.

The concept of “market transformation” entails getting water efficient products on the shelves and sales floors of stores so that consumers can achieve water savings immediately upon installation. The Alliance is working with the WaterSense program of the U.S. EPA to promote market transformation on two levels: providing incentives to manufacturers and retailers to get water efficient products to market and providing incentives to consumers directly. Plumbing Efficiency Research: In January 2009, five national organizations (including the Alliance) formed the Plumbing Efficiency Research Coalition, focusing on research issues such as adequate drainline carry for high efficiency plumbing fixtures; issues in non-water-using urinals; proper sizing of water efficient plumbing systems; and safe applications for water re-use.

Environmental Impacts of Water Conservation in the Great Lakes Basin
With funding from the Great Lakes Protection Fund, AWE examined the benefits of industrial water conservation in the Great Lakes Basin. The effort revealed profound conservation opportunities and environmental benefits related to stream flow, aquifer levels, aquatic life, and air quality. Full details may be found in the AWE publication, Assessing the Economic and Environmental Benefits of Industrial Water Use Efficiency within the Great Lakes Region.

State Policies
After an exhaustive inventory of the laws, regulations, and policies of all 50 states, AWE and the Environmental Law Institute published the 2012 State Scorecard. It ranks the states by their level of water efficiency policy. As a result of the published findings, numerous states are considering legislation, showing that this review was a needed catalyst to action.

Water Conservation and Revenue Loss
The loss of utility revenue from reduced water sales represents a serious barrier to the implementation of water conservation programs. In 2012, AWE brought together 30 leading utility finance managers, rate experts, regulators, and advocates to discuss the issues surrounding declining demand nationwide. Co-hosted with the Johnson Foundation at Wingspread, this Summit produced new thoughts on how water rates could better reflect true long-term costs and provide revenue stability for water utilities. It resulted in the publication of Declining Water Sales and Utility Revenues: A Framework for Understanding and Adapting.

Conserved Water and Stream Flow
Leaving conserved water in-stream provides a clear benefit to the environment, but it introduces numerous legal and political obstacles. AWE, in partnership with American Rivers and the Environmental Law Institute, published the Supply Shortages Looming: Colorado River Basin Water Supply & Demand Study.

Plumbing Research
AWE was instrumental in creating the Plumbing Efficiency Research Coalition, raising funds to study the issue of drain line transport of solid waste in commercial buildings. Completed in November 2012, the study confirms that high efficiency commercial toilet fixtures are not the sole cause of drain line blockages and thus can be safely labeled by the WaterSense program.

Affordable Homes
Building a home with state-of-the-art water efficiency does not have to be expensive, but to date little has been done to specify what should be in a super-water-efficient affordable home. In January 2013, AWE published two guides, one on how to build an affordable home that is super water efficient indoors, and the other on how to design and manage an affordable water efficient landscape.

The Water – Energy Nexus
A powerful web of benefits exists at the nexus between water and energy. For all practical purposes, every drop of water saved saves energy, and every unit of energy saved saves water. Generating electricity is a water-intensive activity as a result of the need for steam, cooling, manufacturing, and many other elements embedded in the process. Likewise, moving, purifying, and disposing of water is also energy intensive. Research published by the California Energy Commission in 2005 revealed the following ranges of energy use in the water cycle:



All of this energy use adds up. In California, about 19% of the entire state’s electrical energy load is used to move and treat water; 32% of the state’s gas load is used to heat water. Therefore, saving water truly saves energy.

The Alliance for Water Efficiency and the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy are currently collaborating on this water-energy nexus, beginning with a national dialogue that resulted in the 2011 Blueprint for Action, a summary of needed water-energy research and programs. It was the subject of testimony before a Senate subcommittee in July of 2012.

Green Jobs and the Economy
In late 2009, the Alliance prepared a position paper for the incoming Obama administration entitled, Transforming Water: Water Efficiency as Stimulus and Long-Term Investment. With an overriding message that water efficiency is a cost-effective investment for the nation, it contained a number of key findings. Among them:


 * A $10 billion investment in water efficiency would boost the U.S. Gross Domestic Product by $13 - $15 billion and would create 150,000 - 200,000 jobs. The wide range in the estimate of job creation is due to the variety of water efficiency program options; programs such as leakage management are more labor intensive, and thus result in more new job creation than do plumbing fixture rebate programs.
 * Direct investment in water conservation programs could save up to 10 trillion gallons of water, along with the related energy savings.
 * Water efficiency programs can be deployed and scaled to need quickly.
 * The greatest benefits of this initiative would occur in areas of greatest need, particularly low-income areas where water infrastructure has not been adequately maintained.
 * In the long-term, investments in water efficiency will also advance national energy policy by promoting sustainable resource use contributing to greenhouse gas reductions, and reducing regional conflicts over declining water supplies.
 * The greatest benefits of this initiative would occur in areas of greatest need, particularly low-income areas where water infrastructure has not been adequately maintained.
 * In the long-term, investments in water efficiency will also advance national energy policy by promoting sustainable resource use contributing to greenhouse gas reductions, and reducing regional conflicts over declining water supplies.
 * In the long-term, investments in water efficiency will also advance national energy policy by promoting sustainable resource use contributing to greenhouse gas reductions, and reducing regional conflicts over declining water supplies.
 * In the long-term, investments in water efficiency will also advance national energy policy by promoting sustainable resource use contributing to greenhouse gas reductions, and reducing regional conflicts over declining water supplies.

US EPA Excellence Award for Strategic Collaboration
In October 2012, the US EPA honored the Alliance for Water Efficiency with an Excellence Award for Strategic Collaboration. In presenting the award, EPA noted, “AWE continued to serve as a national advocate and organizer for WaterSense in 2011. AWE convened its WaterSense and Water-Efficient Products Committee nine times during the year as a venue for stakeholders to discuss the WaterSense specification process and showcase developments in water-efficiency programs, practices, and products. AWE shared its knowledge of WaterSense labeled products and partnerships at more than 80 speaking engagements and 75 events across the United States and Canada. AWE’s work was also essential in welcoming and supporting Canadian partners to the WaterSense program.”

Water Star Award
In 2009, the Alliance launched its Water Star Award, intended to recognize individual lifetime achievements in promoting water conservation and water use efficiency. The inaugural Water Star Award went to John Flowers, recently retired employee of the US Environmental Protection Agency; George Kunkel of the Philadelphia Water Department received the 2010 Water Star Award. Bill Maddaus of Maddaus Water Management received the 2011 Water Star Award, and Karen Guz of the San Antonio Water System received the 2012 AWE Water Star Award.

Honors
The Universities Council on Water Resources (UCOWR) presented the Alliance with its 2009 Education and Outreach Award in recognition of its significant contributions to increased public awareness of the development, use, and management of water resources.