Water Deeply: Should governments mandate submetering? Why?

Ben Bahk: We definitely think so. It introduces that equity and transparency that goes to the core principles of our country. Not to sound too flowery, but I think everybody for the most part is looking for equity and fairness, and submetering will do that. There have been studies that show metered buildings reduce usage by up to 20 percent in some cases.

Water Deeply: How does your company work?

Ben Bahk: Our customers at this point are property managers and property owners. When I say property, I’m talking specifically about large buildings, with a focus on multi-residential buildings.

The problem our clients face is rising water costs. That’s driven, to a large extent, by a need for water infrastructure upgrades. The water utilities who have the responsibility to upgrade, where do they get their money to do so? More often than not, they’re getting it from their ratepayers — their customers. When you couple that with inefficient water usage, you have a formula for rising water costs.

So that’s a problem we are trying to solve. How do we solve that? The backbone of our business is a strong belief in submetering water. That’s the notion that in a multi-residential building — let’s say a 100-unit apartment or condo — each unit should pay for exactly what they use. It’s true for electricity and gas, but typically it is not true for water. Submetering is a solution to that.

We couple that with two additional platforms. One is analytics. We provide information to our clients about water usage, about cost trends, we provide budget information to apartment managers — basically information that helps our client make informed decisions.

The final platform is the actual upgrade. When you think about a residential building, what are the points for water usage and how we can maximize efficiency? Typically one of the greatest usage points is the toilet. There are products out there that use about 1 gallon per flush, then you have the older toilets that can use up to 5 gallons per flush. You can see the huge difference. We run an upgrade program for multi-residential buildings where they can systematically swap out toilets, showerheads, aerators on faucets and so forth. The concept of submetering, analytics and the upgrades, it’s really the comprehensive package to maximize water efficiency.

Water Deeply: How do you convince building owners to invest in submetering?

Ben Bahk: When we talk with apartment owners, what they typically do is assign a portion of the rent they collect toward water fees. Based on some of the discussions I’ve had with these landlords and apartment owners, they say they lose money on that; their water bill exceeds the amount they allocate for water in the rent. Why is that? We talked about how there really is no incentive to save. Landlords are motivated by the idea that if they can get residents to pay for what they actually use, then they wouldn’t necessarily lose money.