Want to offset your water consumption or balance your savings?
Why mirroring your water use or savings is worth it
We can offer you the opportunity to convert the water used ór saved by your product, service or organization. The amount of litres will be made available as clean drinking water in developing countries. We call that mirroring, instead of compensating. Let’s dive into our reasoning for this.
Mirroring instead of compensating
We have deliberately opted not to use the term ‘water compensation’ as we believe it draws too many parallels with the concept of ‘CO2 compensation’, which is fundamentally different. Unlike CO2 emissions, which can be compensated by reducing CO2 levels elsewhere within the same global atmosphere, water usage and replenishment are localized, making the concept of ‘water compensation’ imprecise and potentially misleading.
Water works differently. The term “mirroring” is used to convey that providing clean water to developing nations does not equate to offsetting one’s own water consumption. Fundamentally, donating water to underserved regions does not replenish the water an individual has personally utilized. That is why we avoid the term “compensation”.
In addition, we also think that compensation sounds a bit like doing penance for something bad, while a contribution to clean drinking water is always a good thing – and even better if it is linked to water conservation.
Why mirror your water use?
Why would you consider giving back the amount of water used or saved by donating an equal amount of clean water to developing countries?
We can think of 703,000,000 reasons! That’s the amount of people who still lack access to clean drinking water world wide.
Collecting water takes up most of their days, which makes going to school or working to provide an income almost impossible. On top of that, the water they spend so much time collecting is usually polluted, increasing the risk of diseases.
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By transforming technical information into practical solutions, we make a tangible difference in the world – something our customers find valuable.
Made Blue ambassador
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Real impact
By mirroring your water footprint you make a direct contribution to solving a global issue. Your impact is measurable and quantified: quite different from other ways of donating to charity.
Every 33 cents yields 1000 liters of clean drinking water and we make that very tangible with certificates, impact cheques, and much more. Each ambassador has access to their own meter reading that we update continuously.
Those 1,000 liters provide water for a child at school for a year, but also prevent a significant amount of CO2 emissions, prevent the creation of plastic waste and save trees from being cut down to use as firewood to boil polluted water.
Clean drinking water for all
More than 700 million people still don’t have access to safe water.
We are the Made Blue Foundation and our mission is clean drinking water for all.
Will you help us achieve our mission? There are more ways to do this than you might think.
Rather affordable
You don’t just make impact made by giving back water saved or used in far away places. It impacts your own financial bottom line as well. For example: 1,000 litres of water saved over here leads to a financial saving that is way bigger than the €0,33 needed for giving back that same amount.
Giving back 1,000 litres of water saved only takes 33 Eurocents: about one fifth of the financial savings realized by using less water.
Calculate what it costs to mirror your water consumption or water savings.
Applicable in various sectors
Of course we work a lot with cleaning companies or their suppliers, but also in various other sectors.
How about Quooker, known for its boiling water tap or La Trappe with its Trappist beers. Various coffee suppliers also chose to match each consumption with the same amount of clean drinking water.
See many more examples on our page about the One Litre for One Litre programme.
Contribute to our mission too
You can do so in more ways than you might think.
