Trinkfair - water from the tap

By project POTEnT

Published on 20 October 2022

Germany

Karlsruhe

About this good practice

18.4 billion disposable PET bottles end up in the rubbish nationwide every year. Initial project partners of "trinkfair" are the Ettlingen Municipal Utility and the Karlsruhe Municipal Utility. In the spirit of SDG 17, a project group consisting of employees of all three project partners spent 6 months planning and then executing this campaign, which had four main goals:
1. Educate/inform about the benefits of drinking tap water for the climate
2. Educate/inform about the high quality of German tap water
3. Motivate companies and consumers to change old habits, which might just be unreflected and switch to tap water.
4. Motivate other utilities to join the campaign and aim for zero carbon emissions with their water supply activities, just like Ettlingen and Karlsruhe are doing.

For example, free drinking water dispensers in schools and in the city centre are intended to make it easier to do without bottled water. SWE drinking water dispensers are located at the Anne-Frank-Realschule, the Schillerschule and the vocational school centre in Ettlingen. With the "trinkfair calculator", interested people can work out how much money, plastic waste and CO2 they save in everyday life if they choose tap water.

For companies that want to participate in the campaign, the initiators of "trinkfair" have put together a starter set with glass drinking bottles and carafes so that they can easily switch from bottled water to tap water.

Resources needed

70.000 € in 18 Months.

Evidence of success

50 companies joined the Trinkfair campaign and implemented it in their offices.
6 further Municipal Water Utilities joined the campaign.
273 consumers signed up to the trinkfair challenge and are saving a total of 225 tons of CO2 every year by drinking tap water.
Reach of over 4 million people in the 18 months via social media and press coverage.
A second drink tap water campaign in Germany integrated and adjusted the “trinkfair calculator” in their campaign.

Potential for learning or transfer

The interactive and informative element of the calculator allowed us to easily transmit the benefits of switching to tap water. Togehter with the Q&A section it was the key element of the campaign in motivating to change unreflected behaviour.