The City of Cape Town has awarded South African Breweries’ (SAB’s) Newlands brewery a five-star water grading for its integrated water management system and the promotion of responsible water use in the local business sector.

Astroenergy, Virgin Active Constantia and Old Mutual Pinelands were also among the four companies awarded five-star water certification this year.

The city’s water star rating certification recognises integrated water management, with participants awarded one star certified as compliant with the minimum requirements of relevant water legislation and those awarded between two and five stars certified for implementing different degrees of additional measures to further reduce water consumption and limit water pollution.

This year, the City of Cape Town recognised 14 organisations for their integrated water management efforts, awarding three companies a one-star rating, two companies a two-star rating, one company a three-star rating and four companies a four-star rating.

Those who achieve five stars are certified as ‘champion innovators’ that have found unique or extraordinary ways of conserving water and limiting water pollution, the city outlines.

“We are seeing this hard work, vision and leadership across our society and efforts to become more water- and resourcewise should be commended,” says Cape Town executive deputy mayor Alderman Ian Neilson.

“We reiterate our commitment to building stronger and more inclusive partnerships with the private sector, other public organisations and our residents to help Cape Town become a more resilient city.”

The SAB’s Newlands brewery has reduced its own water use from 3.73 hectolitres (hℓ) for every 1 hℓ of beer produced to 2.8 hℓ by implementing best practice and stringent water-use targets.

By 2025, SAB aims to lower this to 2 hℓ for every 1 hℓ of beer produced globally.

“Over the years, we have always looked to reduce water consumption and use at our breweries across South Africa and the rest of the globe,” says SAB Newlands brewery plant manager Bryan Versfeld.

The company, with water-use authorisation from the Department of Water and Sanitation, uses water sourced from the Newlands Spring and borehole water located on land owned by SAB.

This means that the brewery does not use municipal water to brew products, freeing up about 1.7-million additional litres of water a month to the City of Cape Town.

The water-use licence also allows the overflow from the spring to be collected by the public, with a collection point located on site.

However, during the peak of the drought, the collection point was moved by the City of Cape Town to the Newlands swimming pool, opposite SAB Newlands, where there is increased access and parking for the public.

“As part of the company’s ongoing efforts to help alleviate the water crisis in the City of Cape Town, SAB agreed with the Western Cape government to produce and distribute a total of one-million cases, or 12-million bottles of water, to the hardest hit communities in the city, should Day Zero arrive.”

SAB further made several infrastructure investments within water-scarce cities and contributed R6-million to the City of Cape Town to assist with fixing water leaks in the municipal system and install pressure control devices to enable the city to indirectly reduce water loss.

Meanwhile, Old Mutual Pinelands references the success of its wastewater-to-drinking-water filtration plant to bolster water supply infrastructure.

“We achieved a massive behaviour change by our 9 500 tenants and employees. Before the water filtration project had been commissioned, we already saw a decrease in our water demand by almost 35%. This was a major success,” says Old Mutual national technical manager Khiyam Fredericks.

“Our water stewardship and investments over the past 18 months have shown terrific results, with an average municipal water reduction of 67% across our Western Cape clubs, compared with a 2015 predrought baseline,” says Virgin Active ‘changing business for good’ head Wesley Noble.

The group’s projects in the Western Cape has set the benchmark for how the company should manage and reuse water across its 143 health clubs, with commitments now in place to deploy similar initiatives at its operations in Southern Africa.

Oil and gas company Astronenergy’s facility boasts several key design features, including a closed-loop, air-cooled air-conditioning system; water efficient taps; and capacity for storing 171 000 ℓ of rainwater for use in urinals and for toilet flushing.

Achieving four-star water ratings are Vector Logistics Solutions, BG Servers, First Rand Group and Portside Body Corporate, while a three-star rating was awarded to Vital Health Foods.

TraX Interconnect and Aerosol & Cosmetics secured two-star ratings, while Fusion Leather World, Juno Corporation and Britos Investment Trust were awarded one-star ratings.

The certification process includes a voluntary assessment reviewing of different aspects of water management, including how effluent is handled, how the water is used on site, what measures are in place to reduce municipally supplied drinking water demand, and where the water is sourced.

Points are scored on the knowledge of how much water is used for each location; the promotion of less dependence on the municipal supply by using rainwater, borehole, treated effluent and greywater; responsible discharge of effluent or zero effluent discharge; and regular, proven leak detection and repair, meter auditing and awareness programmes, besides others.