Shurgard
shurgard.comShurgard – the largest operator of self-storage facilities in Europe – is implementing Smartvatten’s water efficiency services across all European locations. With this move, Shurgard takes further active steps to make their widespread sustainability mission a reality, protecting the environment and encouraging their customers to do the same.
The agreement between Shurgard and Smartvatten commenced in May 2022, and includes 269 meters across the more than 260 locations in the European portfolio. Over 180.000 customers are served by Shurgard across seven countries: France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Germany, Belgium, and Denmark. Their buildings are assessed by GRESB, and they also have BREEAM-certified properties in Sweden.
Smartvatten is a hardware-enabled SaaS company, providing its customers with a complete solution for real-time monitoring and reporting of water consumption in properties as well as water utility networks. Their customers save water, resources and reduce the risk and consequences of water-related damage, while improving their sustainability performance. The company’s purpose-built software analyzes water consumption data from mechanical, digital, and IoT-enabled water meters in a cloud environment, as well as relevant external data sources, to identify consumption patterns and detect leaks.
Shurgard has an ambitious ESG strategy, which includes a 5% reduction in water consumption and a 10% reduction in energy use and carbon emissions by 2023. In order to tackle their water efficiency goals, the company is looking to digitalize the process, have its consumption monitored and analyzed in real-time, and actively deal with leaks with a high-quality leak detection system. After an extensive search and screening process that included meetings with different service providers in Europe, the executives at Shurgard HQ chose to move forward with Smartvatten.
“We want to be conscious about water consumption, as it is the new gold,” says Hans van Lierde, Construction & Facility Director Europe at Shurgard. Smartvatten enables the company to avoid manual readings and use remote readings instead, making sure no data is wrong or forgotten. This collaboration is also an excellent choice to help achieve higher sustainability scores for their environmental certifications. With Smartvatten’s user-friendly dashboard and easy-to-install system, Shurgard can easily track big consumption issues in stores across their portfolio and quickly act accordingly.
“Our collaboration is working very well with Smartvatten’s Key Account Manager – acting as a single point of contact – and ongoing regional support,” says Van Lierde. “Questions are answered quickly, we have monthly call updates on the status of implementation, and receive useful recommendations and tricks to reduce our water consumption.” Since implementation began, 50% of Shurgard’s portfolio was equipped with the Smartvatten service, and 75% is expected to be completed by the end of the year.
“We are very happy to work with Shurgard and to be able to help them reach their highly set sustainability goals,” says Taija Järvinen, Key Account Manager at Smartvatten. “Shurgard is a great example of a company that is working to be sustainable in all fields. They are not the biggest consumers of water, but they still take water efficiency seriously and do everything in their power to make sure they’re not wasting any precious resources.”
