Milwaukee is the latest community in southeastern Wisconsin to provide all residents access to an online portal for their water use through a partnership local software startup H2Oscore.
The decision by the Milwaukee Water Works was announced during a Wednesday evening event highlighting the city’s recently completed ReFreshMKE sustainability plan.
Under the contract, the City and H2Oscore will collaborate to provide all residents who receive a Milwaukee water bill access to an online display of their water use from a smartphone or computer.
There is no cost to activate and utilize a H2Oscore water use dashboard.
Residential and commercial water users can activate their building’s water use portal at www.h2oscore.com either from a computer or smartphone.
As an added incentive to become more water efficient, participating homeowners are automatically credited one penny for every gallon they save as compared to the same month in the previous year. Residents can then use those rewards as they would a gift certificate at a variety of participating local businesses.
“The ability to earn in-store credit at your favorite neighborhood restaurant or salon certainly motivates many residents to make simple changes to use water more efficiently, but perhaps more so is simply showing residents that others in the community recognize their efforts to use less and share that stewardship ethic,” McGee Young, H2Oscore founder.
In August, H2Oscore was one of four water technology startups from around the world selected to make up the first class of the Global Freshwater Seed Accelerator program, hosted by the recently opened Global Water Center in Milwaukee’s Fifth Ward.
