King's receives new government funding to reduce water use

King's has been awarded a grant from the Water Efficiency Cambridgeshire Fund (weCB Fund) for water efficiency works at the Keynes Building.

The grant of £83,952 will be used to support the first phase of a long-term water strategy for King’s College, Cambridge.  This phase will be 100% funded by the UK Government, supporting us to save a more than 700,0000 litres of water in this financial year.

“We’re delighted that King's College has secured funding from the weCB Fund to launch a new Water Strategy project, helping us use water more efficiently across our historic estate," commented Polly Ingham, the Domus Bursar.  "The first phase of the project will be to fit new water-saving showers and smart sensors that give real-time feedback in one of our core accommodation sites. These interventions are expected to save around 719,900 litres of water every year a reduction of almost 60%. Cambridge is one of the most water-stressed regions in England, and our local chalk streams depend on it. By using less, we're helping protect these rare habitats for the future."

Beyond direct water savings, the project benefits the chalk-stream ecosystems of the Cambridge Water Resource Zone, which are among England's most water-stressed catchments. By reducing demand we hope to ease pressure on these protected habitats. Shorter, lower-flow showers cut hot-water heating demand, which are a practical way of supporting and realising the College's net-zero commitments.

Head of Facilities James Earl commented, “The most innovative element is the integration of three normally separate water-efficiency approaches into a single closed-loop system: hardware retrofit (low-flow showers), real-time behavioural feedback (sensors), and verified consumption data (AMR sub-metering across an unmetered listed estate). The Keynes Building becomes a controlled, instrumented demonstrator within a working historic estate generating per-shower behavioural data alongside building-level volumetric data."

To learn more about the weCB Fund visit wecbfund.co.uk.