Belgium – In the summer of 2023, Join For Water and Finish joined forces to organize an inspiring and educational try-out of the Water Challenge @Work among various Finish stakeholders.
The aim of this collaboration was to create awareness about direct and indirect water consumption, also known as water footprint, and see how employees can make the water footprint smaller in their daily “work life.
The Water Challenge @work in a nutshell
The Water Challenge @work is an innovative campaign that encourages companies and their employees to make sustainable choices regarding water use in the workplace. For the record : this is not about water consumption in certain business processes, for which there are more appropriate tools. Join For Water addresses employees or teams as water users in daily work life. Participating companies receive a toolbox with useful tips and a lot of ready-to-use information, and can, if desired, add their own interpretation to it.
A month of awareness and action
The try-out of the Water Challenge @work began on July 1st and continued throughout the month. During this period, participants received a weekly email with 4 challenges to complete that week. These ranged from quick-wins like printing less to educational podcasts about the changing water cycle.
The results were highly positive. The 110 participants from different sites in the Benelux began to critically examine water consumption in the office and at home and discovered ways to use the “blue gold” more economically.
In addition, team building was also included: the documentaries were streamed simultaneously in all offices, triggering valuable conversations about sustainability and water conservation and allowing participants to share their experiences.
Marie Balivet (Reckitt) is positive:
“The Water Challenge @work in partnership with Join For Water was a very impactful experience! It was great to work with Join For Water to drive behavior change in our daily organization. Join For Water shared some of the initiatives from the Water Challenge @home and reached out with some important information to create the challenges and posters.
This challenge was also a great opportunity to encourage internal team building at Reckitt and with our colleagues while raising awareness on a timely topic!”
A glimpse into the future
Anouk Courtin, process supervisor at Join For Water:
“The successful tryout of the Water Challenge @work inspired us to expand this campaign further to motivate even more businesses to be water conscious. We already introduced the annual Water Challenge @home campaign where where we work via the family, but we have found a new entry point through companies to also reinforce our message and knowledge through the workplace and raise awareness among employees. Besides, the theme of ‘water’ is a hot topic and a challenge like this is also good to use as team building within a company. We notice by the amount of requests we get that many companies are enthusiastic about this challenge!”
Together we can hydrate and transform the world!
Want to know more about the Water Challenge @work and how your company/municipality/organization can participate? Then contact Anouk Courtin: anouk.courtin@joinforwater.ngo.