Sharing the Permanent Water Conservation Measures across Canberra

“Canberrans need to know about our Permanent Water Conservation Measures. Why aren’t you telling them”?

 

While Canberra doesn’t have temporary water restrictions right now, we do have Permanent Water Conservation Measures which are enforceable rules that have been in place since 2010. We’ve been working hard to tell Canberrans about these rules but we need your help!

 

Tell your friends at your next BBQ, have a chat with work colleagues over a coffee, share the link to the measures on your social media channels. If everyone pitches in, we can all help to spread the message.

Icon Water has been using various channels to get the word out. Our Managing Director Ray Hezkial has become ‘Canberra famous’ recently as he is regularly seen on the news, heard on the radio and interviewed by The Canberra Times, The RiotACT and other local media outlets. He also gives regular updates on water conservation on YouTube.

  

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Stories about saving water in the media have gone from zero to around 11 stories per week. These have covered our water outlook, education on how to read your water meter, to how to teach children how to save water.

A lot has changed since the millennium drought, so we’re investing in trialling a number of options to get the message out about Permanent Water Conservation Measures. Tune in to HIT104.7 and MIX106.3 for lots of water saving reminders, or follow Hit104.7 on social media for a video by Ned and Josh talking about saving water. Drive around town to see the billboards and bus shelter advertisements. Also do a google search or check your Facebook ads to see our digital advertising across the internet.

All the wonderful Canberrans in our advertisements are volunteers and all design work for the campaign has been done in-house to make sure we’re investing our budget in the most effective ways.

Look closely at the bottom of your bill too to see the Permanent Water Conservation Measures outlined.

We’re excited to share with you the results from our Shower Timer Experiment soon! If you live in Gungahlin (around 18,000 households) you’ll be getting a shower timer in the mail in February, along with instructions on how to take part in the experiment (spoiler: keep your shower to four minutes or less). We’ll be monitoring Gungahlin’s water use closely to see if it drops compared to other similar areas in Canberra – if it does, we’ll send out more timers across Canberra.

We also look forward to seeing you at our upcoming events where you can make your own water saving promise and receive your special Care for Water lapel pin. Come and say hello to us at:

  • Lifeline Bookfair: Saturday 1 Feb 2020, 10am
  • Cancer Convoy – Rise Above: Sunday 2 Feb, 6am
  • The ShowRoom: Saturday 15 Feb, 9am
  • Music By the River: Saturday 29 Feb, 5pm

We’re harvesting the treasure-trove of good ideas Canberrans have left over from the Millennium Drought – so tell us your best water saving ideas now. Our Care for Water competition has been running since December and we’re giving away a $100 gift card each week to the winning water saving tip! You can find out how to enter here and see what other people have submitted already.

We can’t wait to continue talking about Permanent Water Conservation Measures in our 2020 school education program which kicks off in February along with our other planned activities which we will tell you all about soon.

BUT: there is more we can do! Remember during the Millennium Drought when you drove past road signs telling you of our water consumption each day? Remember seeing signs in shopping centres and constant reporting on Canberra’s water consumption through the news?

Icon Water will definitely use all of those channels and more if and when we bring in temporary water restrictions. We won’t hesitate to increase our advertising budget and do even more to talk about our dam levels, target consumption per person and other targeted communications.

Do you have any other ideas on how we can be communicating more effectively? Please share any other tips, assistance or advice on our social media channels or email us at communications@iconwater.com.au.

What you can do right now