/aterSense
Partners of the Year
Consumers saved more than 36 billion gallons of water and $267 million on water and sewer
bills in 2009 by using WaterSense labeled products. But they didn't do it alone. More than
2,000 utilities, government entities, nonprofit organizations, manufacturers, retailers, distribu-
tors, builders, and certified irrigation professionals help promote the WaterSense label and spread
the word about the importance of water efficiency.
Each year, the WaterSense Partner of the Year awards recognize organizations
and individuals in four categories who have made extraordinary efforts to:
• Advance the WaterSense mission;
• Increase awareness about WaterSense in a measurable way; and
• Demonstrate overall excellence in the water-efficiency arena.
The following partners stood out among the others for undertaking heroic
efforts in 2009 to help consumers save water.
EPA
WaterSense
PARTNER
OE THE YEAR
Promotional Partner of the Year
Cascade Water Alliance
CASCADE
WATER ALLIANCE
With only one full-time staff
member overseeing water
conservation programs,
Cascade Water Alliance
successfully used its Water-
Sense partnership to help stretch limited resources
and expand into an even more comprehensive
water conservation program for its eight member
agencies in King County, Washington. Collaborat-
ing with local retailers and professionals, Cascade
was able to promote WaterSense and the impor-
tance of water efficiency to the 400,000 residents
and 22,000 businesses it serves, without breaking
the bank.
Cascade worked with nearly 100 plumbers and
prominent retailers including The Home Depot,
Lowe's, and Ace Hardware to help make WaterSense
a permanent fixture in more than 2,000 households
and local businesses. Cascade promoted its toilet
rebate program by working closely with these
organizations and even filmed an informational
video to educate residents about the benefits of
WaterSense labeled toilets.
Cascade also recognized the importance of edu-
cating consumers at the point of purchase and
provided free training for retailer staff; issued
point-of-purchase materials; and conducted regu-
lar, in-store visits, which helped establish strong
relationships and encouraged promotion of the
Cascade Water Alliance took WaterSense on the road
educating residents about WaterSense and the impor-
tance of water efficiency.
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WaterSense label. According to sales staff, some
retailers estimated that thanks to Cascade's rebate
program, 75 to 90 percent of their toilet sales are
WaterSense labeled toilets—up from virtually zero
a couple years ago. Ninety-four percent of custom-
ers surveyed by Cascade said their new toilets
perform as well as or better than their previous
models, affirming EPA's performance criteria for
WaterSense labeled products. Cascade also collab-
orated with Seattle Public Utilities to achieve water
savings outdoors, offering $50 rebates to consum-
ers hiring primarily WaterSense irrigation partners
to install rain sensors.
Cascade also took WaterSense on the road with the
WaterSense Road Show—a traveling display that
visits public events distributing free water-saving
plumbing fixtures and educating residents about
using less with WaterSense. During WaterSense's
Fix a Leak Week, Cascade distributed more than
100,000 toilet leak detection kits by mail to encour-
age families to check for leaks and look for the
WaterSense label when considering new fixtures.
The leak detection kit won the Pacific Northwest
Section of the American Waterworks Association's
Excellence in Communications and Best in Show
awards.
Manufacturer Partner of the Year
C&JMOEN
Buy it for looks. Buy it for life*
Moen Incorporated
Plumbing fixture
manufacturer Moen
pulled out all the
stops in 2009 to
promote WaterSense and increase the number of
labeled products in the marketplace. In fact, Moen
earned the WaterSense label for 100 percent of its
new bathroom faucets in 2009. But that's not all:
Moen, its multifamily brand, and its luxury brand
upgraded all existing faucet models to earn the
WaterSense label too. Together, the company's
three brands now offer nine times more WaterSense
labeled faucets than were available in 2008. The fau-
cets are available in a wide range of prices, making
them affordable for most consumers.
Moen used WaterSense partner materials to pro-
mote its WaterSense labeled products and water
efficiency on media tours to the Today show and in
publications from Good Housekeeping and Elle Decor
to Handy Magazine and Fine Homebuilding. Moen
This year, Moen earned the WaterSense label for all
of its bathroom faucet models and promoted Water-
Sense at trade shows and to national media.
showcased its ShowHouse WaterSense labeled
faucets at the Eco Luxe Media event, educating
more than 200 reporters about WaterSense. The
manufacturer also worked with Tom Kraeutler from
The Money Pit, a national home improvement radio
show, to promote WaterSense savings to more than
25 million listeners in the top 50 U.S. media markets.
In addition to a strong media presence and promo-
tion of WaterSense on packaging, in catalogs, and
online, Moen highlighted WaterSense labeled prod-
ucts at trade shows and made them discussion top-
ics in an online forum for builders and remodelers.
The forum includes materials such as sell sheets,
product photography, and product messaging so
builders can easily communicate the benefits of
WaterSense labeled products to their customers.
Finally, Moen doesn't just preach water efficiency;
the company also practices it. In 2009, Moen reused
70 percent of the water used for product testing
and educated its key marketing and sales associ-
ates about WaterSense.
Retail/Distributor Partner of the Year
Lowe's Companies Inc.
Taking WaterSense promotions to new heights in
2009, Lowe's won the WaterSense Partner of the
Year award for the second time in a row. In fact, the
Fortune 50 company calcu-
lated that efforts to promote
WaterSense tripled in 2009,
from increasing its stock of Let's Build Something Together'
labeled products; exten-
sively marketing and advertising the WaterSense
brand; and introducing an entirely new"Build Your
LOWE'S
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Savings" campaign to educate consumers on how
they can save water, energy, and money. In 2009,
Lowe's sold enough WaterSense labeled products
to save customers $13 million on their utility bills.
The Build Your Savings campaign includes a micro
website that prominently features WaterSense
labeled products and provides users with an infor-
mative home audit tool, which calculates the savings
potential of switching to water- and energy-efficient
products. In stores, the company issued more than
960,000 Build Your Savings Guides, which also
included valuable information on WaterSense. It sup-
ported the new campaign with extensive in-store
signage and announcements to increase consumer
awareness of the water, energy, and monetary sav-
ings associated with using labeled products.
To ensure integration of WaterSense in all depart-
ments, Lowe's focused on educating its more than
238,000 employees in its 1,700 North American
stores with information on WaterSense messaging.
The company used online trainings and encour-
aged its employees to try the labeled products for
themselves, adding valuable perspective to the
staff serving the company's 15 million customers
each week.
In 2009, Lowe's supported tax-free events in Loui-
siana and Virginia for WaterSense labeled products
and joined forces with fellow 2009 WaterSense
Partner of the Year Kohler Co. to offer customers
online coupons for 10 percent off their labeled
product purchases. In addition to these local
events, Lowe's publicized WaterSense in national
and local television spots, circulars, magazine ads,
and online.
Irrigation Partner of the Year
Judy Benson
As the founder of Clear Water Products & Services
Inc. (Clear Water PSI), a
company specializing in
irrigation efficiency, Judy
Benson's partnership with
WaterSense aligned well
with her professional
mission: to educate oth-
ers about outdoor water
efficiency through the use
of efficient systems and techniques.
Judy Benson helped this estate save more than $2,100
on water bills in six months by installing soil moisture
sensors.
Specializing in older irrigation system renovations,
Ms. Benson and Clear Water PSI have helped central
Florida residents and businesses save thousands of
gallons. To comply with her company's standard,
new irrigation systems must meet or exceed 70
percent distribution uniformity (a measure of how
evenly irrigation is applied to a landscape). Ms. Ben-
son also uses remote technology on some larger
systems, allowing her to work proactively with
clients to manage consumption and save water,
while preventing yard damage from malfunction-
ing equipment.
Ms. Benson, an Irrigation Association certified train-
er, saw a need for more education in the irrigation
industry, because she felt some aspects can be com-
plicated and therefore misunderstood. She created
a working display of irrigation products as a tool for
trade events and to show clients how to properly
operate their current equipment and demonstrate
the newest, most efficient technologies.
As an ambassador for WaterSense in her commu-
nity, Ms. Benson drew from the WaterSense website
and partner tools to ensure that her staff had cred-
ible knowledge about outdoor water efficiency.
Benson realized the benefits of partnership shortly
after joining and even received a contract award
partially because one of her WaterSense labeled
irrigation certifications. Since then, Benson has
made it a priority to incorporate WaterSense into
her business and has participated in various Wa-
terSense promotions, such as Fix a Leak Week. She
also spoke of incentivizing the use of WaterSense
irrigation partners with the local soil and water
conservation board, county commissioners, local
municipalities, water purveyors, and water man-
agement districts.
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2010 Excellence Awards
~1\ /I ore tnan 2-000 promotional, irrigation, manufacturer, and retailer partners have joined
I \ / I WaterSense in the last four years.To acknowledge the outstanding accomplishments
I V I of this growing partnership, WaterSense has expanded its Partner of the Year awards
program. In 2010, for the first time, WaterSense included Excellence Awards, which recognize addi-
tional organizations and individuals whose support of WaterSense stood out in one or more of the
Partner of the Year evaluation categories.
Strategic Collaboration
Albuquerque-Bernalillo County Water Utility
Authority: The authority visited every toilet
retailer in Albuquerque to provide them with
display materials and promote the Flush Rush toilet
rebate program. As a result, the number of stores
carrying WaterSense labeled products increased
from two in 2007 to 245 in 2009—a more than
12,000 percent increase! The water authority also
partnered with larger customers such as Albuquer-
que Public Schools and the City of Albuquerque
to retrofit old, inefficient toilets with WaterSense
labeled models.
Kohler Co.: After winning a WaterSense Partner of
the Year award for two consecutive years, Kohler
went on to host 49 education and promotional
events across the country in 2009, continuing its
leadership in the water-efficiency field. Collaborat-
ing with national retailers and its robust distribution
network, Kohler reached out to consumers and
trained more than 8,000 professionals on water
efficiency.
Robert Dobson: Mr. Dobson is president of Middle-
town Sprinkler Company, an irrigation contracting
firm in Port Monmouth, New Jersey. In 2009, Mr.
Dobson helped lead the New Jersey irrigation con-
tractor licensure program to earn the WaterSense
label for its professional certification program—the
first state licensure program to achieve this recog-
nition. Because of this, all licensed irrigation con-
tractors in New Jersey will be eligible to become
WaterSense irrigation partners. He also encouraged
irrigation professionals in his area to become Water-
Sense partners and authored a model conservation
ordinance to promote hiring WaterSense irrigation
partners for installation projects in the state.
Drains Plus, Inc.: Drains Plus, a plumbing and drain
cleaning company serving Durham and the sur-
rounding areas of North Carolina, gave presenta-
tions on WaterSense labeled products to encourage
water conservation and retrofits and coordinated
with the City of Raleigh to expedite water-efficient
product rebates. The company, a member of both
the U.S. Green Building Council and Green Plumb-
ers, made personal contact with clients ranging
from the North Carolina Restaurant and Lodging
Association to the Chamber of Commerce to resi-
dents around the Research Triangle region to edu-
cate them on the bottom line savings that could be
achieved by installing WaterSense labeled products.
Labeled Products in the Marketplace
Caroma: Every single one of plumbing manufactur-
er Caroma's 47 floor-mount, dual-flush toilet models
have earned the WaterSense label. Caroma estimat-
ed that 99 percent of its toilet sales in 2009 in the
United States were WaterSense labeled models.
Demonstrated Results
Bryan Condray: Mr. Condray, irrigation opera-
tions manager for the Arizona- and Nevada-based
landscape management company DLC Resources,
Inc., helped 17 of the communities served by his
company reduce outdoor water use by a combined
529 million gallons. As a WaterSense irrigation
partner, Mr. Condray played a key role in leading
DLC Resources to develop water programming logs
to track systems' run times and irrigation water use.
This data is compared to a community's water bud-
get to demonstrate success of conservation efforts
and to identify areas for further improvement.
October 2010
(866) WTR-SENS (987-7367) • www.epa.gov/watersense • watersense@epa.gov
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