The 50L Home Coalition, of which Electrolux Group is a founding member, is currently running the first-of-its-kind pilot that looks at how to reduce household water use from 150 liters per day to 50. Electrolux Group has retrofitted homes taking part in the pilot in Los Angeles, North America, with appliances to help demonstrate how new innovations and efficiency can help drive down water use. Read about the progress so far.
We spoke with Tara Helms, Director of Sustainability North America, and Jirko Müller, Global Experience Marketing Director in Product Line Care (pictured below) about the 50L Home pilot, working alongside other members including Ikea, Procter & Gamble, Kohler and L’Occitane.
Helms: Early results show a 19% reduction in water consumption per household, simply by swapping dated appliances and fixtures with newer, more water-efficient alternatives available on the market. The results highlight the potential role of water-efficient appliances in reducing household water use. Actual savings may vary depending on the products installed and household usage patterns.
Müller: We want to see how we can get to 50 liters through innovation. To get consumers to adopt more sustainable habits, it’s best to provide solutions that make it easy. Products that help them live on 50 liters, but make it feel like 500.
Helms: To give some perspective, the average water consumption per day per person is 150 liters, or 40 gallons, which is close to 4 showers’ worth. And in Los Angeles, the average is 400 liters! That’s serious overconsumption, in an area with serious water scarcity. So we need more than just messaging – we need innovative solutions.
Müller: That’s what we measured with this pilot. How far can we get with the best possible products? Our partners, for example, provided kitchen and bathroom fixtures designed to reduce water consumption, helping participants use water more efficiently.
Helms: In the next phase, we’ll upgrade the appliances used in the pilot and evaluate their water and energy consumption under real-life conditions. We’ll also nudge the participants toward how to use the appliances and their settings best and will look at which everyday habits may contribute to changes in water and energy use.
Our Electrolux Stainless Steel Tub Dishwasher features SmartBoost™, which premixes detergent with water before it reaches your dishes. This technology is designed to support effective cleaning. Our Electrolux 700 series washer and dryer pair aims to take our efforts further. Our dryer includes a Wear it AgainTM Cycle to cut down on wasted washes – it’s a cycle specifically designed to refresh lightly worn or stored clothing in just 15 minutes. In August 2024, our 700 Series washer was listed as the most energy-efficient standard-size washing machine on the market, according to the US Department of Energy, Natural Resources Canada and ENERGY STAR listings. The washer defaults to cold-water washing and has a visual indicator that helps users identify the cycle settings that are designed to reduce their energy and water consumption.
Müller: The greater purpose of all this is to be able to tell consumers – but also policymakers – that there are solutions that can get you to X with water use. ‘X’ is not 50 liters yet, but we’re working on it. This could trigger discussions on legislation. For example, should we incentivize water-efficient appliances like we do electric vehicles, or solar panels?
And as a manufacturer, we’re also getting insights on consumer behavior so that we know better where to innovate and inform. For example, a significant number of the people in the pilot thought they needed to run hot water in the tap before they started the dishwasher. That’s a huge waste. So there’s an opportunity to raise their awareness about that, to nudge the consumer toward reducing their water consumption, and then to measure what difference it makes.
Helms: These insights help us help the consumer. There’s very often this notion that you have to give up something to be sustainable. It’s just not true. This project explores how to achieve clean clothes and clean dishes while reducing water and energy consumption and measuring the savings.
The reason we are focusing on informing and nudging the consumer, and the reason we are developing features that make it easier to save water and energy is this: 85% of the carbon footprint of appliances like ours come from their use, not their production.
Müller: To me this is an exciting project because it’s such a real-life assessment of how consumers are living and it’s so rich in terms of the learnings that we can achieve from it. It’s exciting to work with other leading companies who are innovating in this area and are committed to sustainability. This kind of public-private partnership is really needed to create the change needed at a system level to make 50 liters a day a reality.
About the 50L Home Coalition
The 50L Home Coalition is a global action-oriented platform that addresses two of our most pressing global challenges: water security and climate change. Convened by the World Economic Forum and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, members include Electrolux Group, IKEA, Procter & Gamble, Kohler, Groupe L’Occitane, Grundfos, Aliaxis and Holcim. The Coalition strives to re-invent the future of water and change the narrative on domestic water consumption.
Read more about the pilot here.
