SDG 6 - Clean water and sanitation

SDG Goal icon - a glass filled with liquid and an arrow pointing down on a blue background

Over the last two years, RGU has expanded our smart metres infrastructure to cover all our water meters on our Garthdee Campus, Boat House and National Subsea Centre.

This function means that the buildings have an excessive water consumption alarms, which notify the estate’s team if a water consumption value gas has been breached for a particular building.

Our strategy is focused on reducing water consumption. We have secured funding to expand our waterless urinals on campus and to implement water tap aerators in two major buildings on campus.

RGU has also been involved in international research to improve water security. The development of and sharing of the seminal detection method for blue-green algal (cyanobacteria) toxins in drinking water is now used worldwide. The reliable detection of the key class of toxins, the microcystins, enabled the WHO to introduce guideline values for acceptable levels in drinking water. The development of mass culturing and isolation procedures to ensure the global availability of analytical standards for a wide panel of cyanotoxins has grown into a significant commercial venture with a US based company.