Significant water demand:
The following water uses are deemed to be significant:
- Swimming pools and their associated changing facilities (toilets, showers etc.)
- On sites with multiple units or buildings, e.g. shopping centres, apartment blocks, industrial units, retail parks etc. separate sub-meters are fitted on the water supply to the following areas (where present):
a. For Residential buildings with multiple dwellings and Residential Institutions with multiple with self-contained dwellings, each dwelling counts as a significant water use.
b. Common areas (e.g., covering the supply to toilet blocks).
c. Service areas (covering the supply to outlets within storage, delivery, waste disposal areas etc.).
d. Ancillary or separate buildings to the main development with a water supply. - Laboratories: in any building with a laboratory (or containing laboratories), a separate water meter is fitted on the water supply to any process or cooling loop for plumbed-in laboratory process equipment.
All water consuming systems or building areas that are expected to account for more than 10% of the buildings total water demand must be considered when determining significant water uses.
No additional monitoring benefit:
Sub metering is not required where the project team confirms there will be no additional monitoring benefit resulting from their installation.
Examples include:
- Where a building has only one or two small sources of water demand (e.g. an office with only sanitary fittings and a small kitchen facilities).
- Where the building has two sources of water demand, one significantly larger than the other, and the water consumption for the larger demand is likely to mask the smaller demand (e.g. where there is a larger water demand from a changing area complete with showers and toilets, and the only other water demand is for toilet facilities).
Where the asset is targeting answer E (sub-metering) and:
- Can show that there is no additional monitoring benefit from installing sub-meters in line with criterion 5 and,
- Has met the requirements for answers C (site metering) and D (building metering),
then the 6 credits for answer E are awarded by default.
16 October 2024: Updated to include examples of water-consuming plant/building areas and also where no additional monitoring benefit.
