Overall Rating	Gold
Overall Score	65.89
Liaison	Jonathan Rausseo
Submission Date	Nov. 25, 2021

STARS v2.2

University of Ottawa
OP-21: Water Use

Status

Score

Responsible Party

4.00 / 4.00

Javier Calle
Energy Analyst
Facilities

"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Level of ”Physical Risk Quantity” for the institution’s main campus as indicated by the World Resources Institute Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas:

Low

Part 1. Reduction in potable water use per person

Total water withdrawal (potable and non-potable combined):

	Performance Year	Baseline Year
Total water withdrawal	486,931 Cubic meters	700,414 Cubic meters

Potable water use:

	Performance Year	Baseline Year
Potable water use	486,931 Cubic meters	695,914 Cubic meters

Start and end dates of the performance year and baseline year (or three-year periods):

	Start Date	End Date
Performance Period	Jan. 1, 2019	Dec. 30, 2019
Baseline Period	May 1, 2005	April 30, 2006

If end date of the baseline year/period is 2004 or earlier, provide:

A brief description of when and why the water use baseline was adopted:

The water baseline was chosen to match the energy baseline to simply reporting.

Figures needed to determine "Weighted Campus Users":

	Performance Year	Baseline Year
Number of students resident on-site	3,664	2,885
Number of employees resident on-site	0	0
Number of other individuals resident on-site	0	0
Total full-time equivalent student enrollment	37,360	37,345
Full-time equivalent of employees	4,609	4,627
Full-time equivalent of students enrolled exclusively in distance education	303	0
Weighted campus users	32,165.50	32,200.25

Potable water use per weighted campus user:

	Performance Year	Baseline Year
Potable water use per weighted campus user	15.14 Cubic meters	21.61 Cubic meters

Percentage reduction in potable water use per weighted campus user from baseline:

29.95

Part 2. Reduction in potable water use per unit of floor area

Gross floor area of building space:

	Performance Year	Baseline Year
Gross floor area	621,099 Gross square meters	539,211 Gross square meters

Potable water use per unit of floor area:

	Performance Year	Baseline Year
Potable water use per unit of floor area	0.78 Cubic meters per square meter	1.29 Cubic meters per square meter

Percentage reduction in potable water use per unit of floor area from baseline:

39.26

Part 3. Reduction in total water withdrawal per unit of vegetated grounds

Area of vegetated grounds:

	Performance Year	Baseline Year
Vegetated grounds	9.30 Hectares	7.77 Hectares

Total water withdrawal per unit of vegetated grounds:

	Performance Year	Baseline Year
Total water withdrawal per unit of vegetated grounds	52,358.27 Cubic meters per hectare	90,155.15 Cubic meters per hectare

Percentage reduction in total water withdrawal per unit of vegetated grounds from baseline:

41.92

Optional Fields

A brief description of the institution's water-related behavior change initiatives:

The bulk of the success in our water reduction has not come from community engagement, rather from improvements to equipment, using new technologies, and empowering Facilities staff to take imitative on projects that reduce consumption. Nevertheless, there is a campaign asking employees to report leaks as soon as they notice them in order to reduce waste.

A brief description of the institution's water recovery and reuse initiatives:

The University of Ottawa employs a black water re-use system to provide feed water to the cooling towers. The black water is sourced from the concentrate of the science precinct water purification plant and the over-flow from the aquatic care fish holding facility.(on main campus) Aquatic care black water diverted to cooling tower make up and enriched reverse osmosis concentrate that used to go to sewer at the power plant.

At our health science campus, we use a reverse osmosis system to purify ‘black water’. Water optimization and black water recycling of Reversed Osmosis concentrate is used as feed water.

Water is also recovered from condensation that accumulates on equipment and is returned to the central plant for reuse.

A brief description of the institution's initiatives to replace plumbing fixtures, fittings, appliances, equipment, and systems with water-efficient alternatives:

Whenever new technologies arrive that are proven to reduce water consumption, the University of Ottawa retrofits its infrastructure to incorporate that technology. This tends to happen typically at the end of life of the equipment (ex. toilets, showers, etc).
If it is observed that water consumption in a building is rising faster than anticipated, investigations are conducted to isolate the issues, and when required, old infrastructure is replaced with new infrastructure.

Website URL where information about the institution’s water conservation and efficiency efforts is available:

https://sustainable.uottawa.ca/water

Additional documentation to support the submission:

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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:

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