A set of initiatives aimed to reduce water consumption in Moscow has won the bronze award in the category “Mobile Sites and Applications” in the category “Business/Government” at the 18th Annual International Business Awards, a part of esteemed Stevie Award program. The winners were selected by a panel of experts.
The campaign to reduce water consumption in Moscow is implemented by the Department of Information Technologies together with the Department of Housing and Communal Services.
“Our team is truly honoured to receive this prestigious award. Within just seven months since the campaign began, we have won two international awards: in May the project was recognized as one of the best smart services for city living at the international German Innovation Award, and now we have received a Stevie Award bronze. Our project is an answer to the question on how to reduce water consumption in the capital. We do not just convince the Muscovites in the necessity to spend less water, we made conscious water usage an easy and rewarding digital experience that nudges Muscovites into more sustainable daily choices, “- said Eduard Lysenko, Minister of the Government of Moscow, Head of the Department of Information Technologies of Moscow.
The winners were chosen by more than 260 experts from all over the world. This year over 3700 projects were submitted for the contest in such nominations as “Company of the Year”, “Mobile Sites and Applications”, “Best New Product or Service”, “Startup of the Year”, “Best Corporate Social Responsibility Program”, “Best Manager” and others. The competition also included several categories highlighting the response of organizations and individuals to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Moscow submitted the following mos.ru project: an updated water meter reading service (water consumption graph, tips, emotional reinforcements), an interactive quiz on water saving, and an interactive presentation to support the initiatives.
According to the expert jury, the Moscow Department of Information Technology has developed a successful digital program aimed at encouraging residents to use water more rationally with the help of visual design, graphs and an interactive quiz.
Since 2012, Muscovites can submit water meter readings online via the service on mos.ru, and from 2021 it includes functions that help consume water more consciously. For example, users see the individual statistics of water consumption and can compare it to the city’s average indicators. If these figures decrease or vice versa, significantly increase, the service notifies users about this.
On mos.ru everyone can take an interactive quiz to check how they save water and learn how to use resources more responsibly.
To support this project, Moscow launched a campaign with elements of augmented reality “The value water” was held in the capital this spring. From February to April 2021, Muscovites received their unified utility bills with a special QR-code. When scanned by a mobile phone, the code activated an AR showing all the way that a water drop goes from a collecting tank to one’s tap. Users could participate in the water processing – they could launch the purification procedures, open pumps and taps.
In May 2021, Moscow campaign to reduce water consumption was recognized as one of the best smart services for living in the city according to the German Innovation Award in the Smart living category.
In June 2021, a special project “Clean Water: How It Works” was launched on the mos.ru portal to continue the range of initiatives.
As a follow-up to the AR project, we launched “Clean Water: How We Produce It” project in June 2021. There, we collected the most important and useful information about water, how to save it and why. The project describes large-scale processes of water extraction and purification, and the path it takes before it enters the taps.
The International Business Awards is one of the most esteemed and reputed business awards program in the world. All people and organizations worldwide – public and private, for-profit and nonprofit, large and small – are eligible to apply for it. In 2021, organizations from 63 countries applied.
The Stevie Awards are presented through eight programs, including the Asia Pacific Stevie Awards, the German Stevie Awards, the Middle East and North Africa Stevie Awards, the American Business Awards, the International Business Awards, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, the Stevie Awards for Great Employers and the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. The Stevie Awards receive more than 12,000 entries annually from organizations in more than 70 countries.