As a water company, how do you influence your customers’ consumption?

We use a lot of water in the Netherlands, particularly in the morning and evening. This is when we tend to have showers, do the washing up and put on the washing machine. Peaks in consumption mean that pumps have to work extra hard and use a lot of energy. Water company Vitens wanted to save energy and costs by getting customers to spread their consumption more evenly.

Business development manager Micha van Aken and his colleagues knew from experience that it was difficult to change customer behaviour. Perhaps a game could help? “We approached Grendel Games,” Micha says. “It was the first time that we’d used a game to realise behaviour change. The Grendel team was keen to get started, and quickly came up with some ideas.”

Well thought-through and elaborate game

“They came up with a game called Wijk [neighbourhood] & Water Battle, consisting of an app, a website and a Facebook page. Grendel is fantastic at visualising, which really gives the game its added value. They brought in some behavioural scientists, so the game is well thought through and well put together.”