Over the past decade, WaterSense and its nearly 2,000 partners have helped consumers and businesses save more than 2.1 trillion gallons of water and $46.3 billion in utility bills.

On Oct. 5, WaterSense recognized 20 Sustained Excellence, Partner of the Year, and Excellence Award winners for their 2016 contributions during the 2017 WaterSmart Innovations Conference and Exposition in Las Vegas. The following organizations are helping consumers save water, energy, and money by producing and promoting WaterSense-labeled products, programs and homes:

2017 Sustained Excellence Awards

• Athens-Clark County (Georgia) Public Utilities Department held more than 100 interactive programs promoting water efficiency with nearly 9,000 participants. Athens-Clark County also partnered with a local hospital to replace its showerheads with WaterSense labeled models.
• Cobb County (Georgia) Water System participates in every WaterSense campaign, including a Sprinkler Spruce-Up program known as Inspect, Direct, Connect. The organization’s volunteer ambassadors also educated more than 13,000 residents about water efficiency in 2016.
• Delta Faucet Company won its third Sustained Excellence Award for donating WaterSense labeled faucets and showerheads to support clean water efforts in Flint, Michigan. Delta provided continuing education and eLearning courses to more than 8,500 employees and professionals.
• KB Home earned it third Sustained Excellence Award, building 265 WaterSense labeled homes in 2016. That includes the Cadanera community in West Covina, California, where all homes were built to WaterSense criteria and are expected to save 1.4 million gallons of water annually.
• Kohler Co. won its fifth Sustained Excellence Award. The company featured its new 1.0-gallon WaterSense labeled toilet in a campaign focused on drought-prone states, and its semi-trailer truck tour showcasing WaterSense labeled products reached more than 36,000 people in 2016.
• Sonoma-Marin (California) Saving Water Partnership, which sponsors the Qualified Water Efficient Landscaper certification, expanded its training opportunities for irrigation professionals to community college students and educated Home Depot shoppers on outdoor water efficiency.
• The Home Depot received its third Sustained Excellence Award; the retailer provided $59 million in WaterSense labeled product markdowns in 2016. A Home Efficiency Audit tool on its website also calculates water and money savings of replacing old fixtures with labeled models.

2017 Partners of the Year

• Citrus County (Florida) Utilities received its second Promotional Partner of the Year Award. To promote WaterSense labeled irrigation controllers, the utility partnered with Lowe’s Home Improvement at a home and garden show and offered rebates, as well as hosting an expo to distribute other WaterSense labeled products and holding a classroom leak detection challenge.
• City of Charlottesville (Virginia) earned its third Promotional Partner of the Year Award. The City partners with weather.com to communicate how to water lawns efficiently, depending on the weather, and hosted an art contest, Imagine a Day Without Water, for first through eighth grade students.
• Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District received its second Promotional Partner of the Year Award. The organization’s 55 utility members promote WaterSense labeled product replacements, water audits to commercial entities, WaterSense labeled homes to developers, and Fix a Leak Week to citizens with a 5-kilometer race and festival.
• G3, Green Gardens Group earned a Professional Certifying Organization Partner of the Year Award for teaching over 300 irrigation practitioners about water efficiency best management practices and WaterSense labeled irrigation controllers through its Watershed Wise Landscape Professional program, certifying more than 80 of the program’s participants in 2016.
• American Standard earned its second Manufacturer Partner of the Year Award; a nationwide Beauty in Motion truck tour by its parent corporation, LIXIL, showcased WaterSense labeled toilets, faucets, and showerheads. The company also held a Facebook contest to give away WaterSense labeled faucets.

2017 Excellence Awards

• City of Fort Worth (Texas) and Metropolitan Water District of Southern California for Excellence in Promoting WaterSense Labeled Products.
• City of Durham (North Carolina) Water Management, Sonoma-Marin (California) Saving Water Partnership, and The Toro Company for Excellence in Education and Outreach.
• Alliance for Water Efficiency, Niagara Conservation Corp., and The City of Plano (Texas) for Excellence in Strategic Collaboration.

Learn more about WaterSense and this year’s winners at www.epa.gov/watersense/watersense-awards.