Zurich makes a sustainability splash with water harvesting system

Zurich North America, already an insurance industry leader in sustainability, is now recycling thousands of gallons of groundwater to cool its state-of-the-art headquarters in Schaumburg, Illinois.

With the installation of an innovative water harvesting system, Zurich can reduce water consumption in its cooling towers, which will result in substantial savings and less impact on the environment.

The cooling towers use five million gallons of water annually to cool the building. Previously, all that water was purchased from the Village of Schaumburg. To reduce the amount of purchased water used in the cooling process, Zurich needed to harvest a significant amount of groundwater.

To do this, a sump located under Zurich’s parking structure channels groundwater through a storm sewer system. Normal flow into the sump is about 25,000 gallons per day, and this water is essentially lost once it makes its way out of the storm sewer system.

The groundwater was determined to be good enough to harvest, but it had a mineral makeup that would have a degrading effect on the equipment of the cooling towers. As water evaporates through the towers, the mineral contents would be left behind, causing degradation to the system over time.

Working with Chemsearch FE, a Texas-based facility resource management company, a system was developed to reduce the hardness of the water and repurpose the groundwater. The process involves softening the water to prevent scaling, using reverse osmosis to eliminate up to 99 percent of impurities and, finally, blending groundwater with domestic water to achieve a consistent chemical makeup.

The result is an estimated daily savings of 14,400 gallons, or the equivalent of the annual water consumption of 45 households.

“We can all be proud to work for a company that demonstrates its commitment to the future by making a significant investment to repurpose groundwater in such a positive way,” said Nancy DeLorenzo, Head of Facilities Management and Regional Operations for Zurich North America.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, only three percent of the earth’s water is fresh and just 0.5 % is readily available for consumption.

“What makes this system such a big deal is the scale,” said Bruce Lerner, Head of Zurich North American Corporate Real Estate & Workplace Services. “Being able to repurpose millions of gallons of groundwater each year is tremendous. With increasing costs of utilities such as water and the cost savings involved, it was an easy decision to move forward with this solution.”