Operating in various European countries, including the Netherlands, Heimstaden is a residential real estate organization that wants to enrich and simplify lives through Friendly Homes. The Dutch branch of the organization began just recently with a newly launched sustainability strategy being implemented in 2020.
As a leading real estate company, Heimstaden is fully committed to its responsibility for a sustainable future and have pledged their commitment to the Paris Agreement and Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. This includes reducing their properties’ water usage and ensuring the availability and sustainability of water management.
“We have a goal to reduce water usage in our buildings by 1% this year and Smartvatten is helping to get the most of these insights, supporting us to work together with our customers to save water.”
— Eva Bienias, Sustainability Manager at Heimstaden
One of Heimstaden’s sustainability goals that began in 2021 is to reduce water usage in their buildings by at least 1% each year. To do so, in the Netherlands they prioritized several initiatives, including:
Their new water-saving strategy required a partner that offered solutions to help them accomplish those goals, which is why in early 2020, they reached out to Smartvatten.
Today, Smartvatten is a key partner and helps Heimstaden to meet their water usage reduction targets, from monitoring the water of Heimstaden’s properties to providing material and data helping to educate tenants and customers.
“Smartvatten helps us to monitor the water usage in our buildings so we can see the effects of our water-saving efforts,” says Eva Bienias, Sustainability Manager at Heimstaden. “Part of saving water means we work together with our tenants. We have a goal to reduce water usage in our buildings by 1% this year and Smartvatten is helping to get the most of these insights, enabling us to work together with our customers to save water in the near future.”
Smartvatten’s innovative and modern water monitoring reporting system and dashboard will benefit not only Heimstaden but also their customers to provide more context and to help educate them.
“The data we are able to see is very visual, which will help put the water monitoring data into perspective for us and our customers,” says Eva. “We’re able to show that clearly-presented data and insights to our customers, which will support us in working together with them to reduce their water.”
The education and awareness Heimstaden is providing its customers with the help of Smartvatten will allow them to not only save water but to save on costs.
“If we use the data from Smartvatten to set up an encouragement system where tenants can see their buildings’ water usage, it will help them to use less water, which will then help our customers in the end. So, it’s a win-win,” adds Eva.
According to Tim Twisk, Global Key Account Manager with Smartvatten, the partnership with Heimstaden makes perfect sense. “The intensive way Heimstaden uses our portal and the vision they have makes them a truly ideal customer for Smartvatten. We have a lot of clients using us for different reasons but Heimstaden shows us that we also have clients using us for all the reasons”
With Smartvatten’s real-time notification system, Heimstaden has been set up to receive alerts when water leaks or other irregularities are tracked.
“I recently received a notification about a leak in one of our buildings,” says Eva. “We have a communication line between Smartvatten and our own local services at the property, where they can communicate together, which allowed them to identify and repair the leak. This will clearly help us in reaching our goals and without Smartvatten, we would have never been able to track the leak so quickly,” she adds.
While the partnership between Heimstaden and Smartvatten is still young, the collaboration is going well.
“What we at Heimstaden have come to appreciate is that Smartvatten is working on the same water-saving initiatives and goals that we are,” says Eva. “They’re helping organizations like us by supplying clear and real-time insights on water usage, so I think it will be a great match for us to reach our water-saving goals.”
Heimstaden takes pride in differentiating itself with their wider and longer-term view.
“As we expand our portfolio, we do so with a long-term vision,” says Edward Touw, Head of Marketing and Communications at Heimstaden. “This allows us to not only make sustainability improvements, but it also enables us to serve and work with our customers directly while creating a friendly living environment.”
With Smartvatten able to transfer data to about 40 different energy monitoring systems, customers have the opportunity to see all of their energy data in a single platform. This was something Heimstaden valued in selecting Smartvatten as their water monitoring solution, as they also had a cooperation with their local energy supplier in the Netherlands, enabling the Heimstaden team to monitor their buildings’ water, electricity and heating all within one system.
In the first quarter of 2021, Smartvatten is currently monitoring the water usage of 24 of Heimstaden’s buildings across various countries, including the Netherlands, with Heimstaden planning to expand and utilize Smartvatten’s water monitoring solutions to other buildings in the near future.
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