Saving water

The University has been monitoring, measuring and working to reduce water use for over 40 years. We save water by including water-efficient operating plant, fittings and equipment in our buildings, and by encouraging staff and students to save water in kitchens, toilets and bathrooms, and labs.

In 2023, the University used 375,034 cubic metres of water overall. Excluding accommodation buildings, we used 182,090 cubic metres.

Green Your Room Challenge

Every year at Earth Hour, our Accommodation buildings launch a five week Green Your Room Challenge to encourage residents to live more sustainably. Conscious water use is one of several themes in the challenge, with residents invited to make water saving pledges such as:

• I turn the tap off while brushing my teeth or washing my face
• I never exceed shower times of 5-10 minutes
• I turn off the water while applying soap or shampoo in the shower
• I use the half flush in the toilet
• I only wash full loads of laundry

In 2024, over 2100 students took part in Green Your Room, approximately 50% of the resident population.

Sustainable Labs

Water saving is also a theme within the sustainable labs work undertaken by many staff teams across our campuses. Notable teams include the Sustainable Laboratories working group, part of the Faculty of Science Sustainability Network, and the My Green Lab committee, who in recent years earned the highest level of international sustainability certification for the Liggins Institute Laboratory through the My Green Lab programme.

Where possible, we reuse water on our campuses. Water used for heating and cooling our buildings is re-recirculated. We also have three buildings with rainwater harvesting tanks for toilet flushing. These are the Owen G Glenn Building, the recently redeveloped B201 building, and our brand new Recreation Centre. When fully tuned, the 88,000L capacity tank in B201 will eventually save over 75% of the water use of a comparable building. The Recreation Centre tank's capacity is approximately 103,000L, which is estimated to provide storage for six days' worth of flushing.   

Two of our specialist sites have wastewater treatment systems. The first is our Leigh Marine Laboratory, located 100km northeast of Auckland City. The second is Goldie Estate, home to our Goldwater Wine Science Centre in Surfdale, Waiheke Island in the Hauraki Gulf. At both sites, raw wastewater is collected in a series of holding tanks, which are dosed with various treatments. From there, it is pushed through a wastewater disposal field, where the treated effluent is channelled to slowly discharge onto the land. Both treatment plants have an associated resource consent, reviewed by local council annually, and maintained on a three monthly basis by septic tank specialists.

At Newmarket Campus and a few specialist research sites, we employ sustainable water extraction. At Newmarket, groundwater is extracted from the unconfined fractured basalt aquifer that underlies the site. It is primarily used for cooling the Centre for Advanced Composite Materials, on levels one and three of Building 902, and serving hose taps. The cooling system is closed loop, as there is no contamination of the water and it is returned to its source. Water from the hose taps is drained away via the wastewater system.

At the Leigh Marine Laboratory, we draw from two bore systems. The laboratory also draws seawater from the surrounding reserve to use in experiment tanks and education programmes. 

At Ngapouri Farm, a research lab based near Rotorua in the central North Island, water is drawn from a local bore in the Paeroa range, and distributed to several major users in the region via a series of pump sheds.

Access to free drinking water on the University’s campuses is an essential component of student, staff and visitor well-being. There are 127 drinking water facilities distributed across our City, Newmarket and Grafton campuses.

Be a water saver: Install a rainwater tank at home

Installing rainwater tanks not only helps preserve water supplies but also protects the environment from the effects of excess stormwater run-off. The collected rainwater can also be used for other purposes like watering your garden, washing your car, supplying your washing machine and toilet or topping up spas and swimming pools.

Resource consent is often required when installing domestic tanks to ensure they meet development standards such as proximity to the boundary. Tank size, water usage in the household, household occupant numbers and seasonal rainfall will impact the degree to which rainwater tanks can contribute to household water supply, so naturally these variants would need to be considered before choosing a tank.

You can find more information on rainwater tanks and resource consents on the Auckland Council website.