According to several online datasets publicly available, Italy always scores among the top consumers of bottled water worldwide, both in absolute terms (volume per year) and per capita. Bottled water is often associated with higher CO2 emissions compared to safe tap water already getting to domestic users, especially when local water is stored in either glass or aluminum bottles and used to match customers’ needs. Just focusing on the territory of Florence, in direct relation with the members of Florence Hub and its range of action, the number of water testing points within the territory of Florence is impressive and managed on a daily basis by the water utility. Despite all that, backed by some attempts of advertisement campaigns, the use among citizens of tap water is still pretty limited, around three out of ten, probably related to lack of trust towards the action of the water utility (bad reputation), taste issues and quality concerns.

With this project we aspire to:

- reach out to 50% of Publiacqua’s (local water utility) employees with an online survey to understand their water consumption habits and track how many people do not consume as yet tap water to drink at home and why (+ follow-up after the actions taken);

- create water awareness material, aligned with the one already present and released by the water utility coherent with the scientific guidelines on the topic, to inform people on tap water quality, taste reasons and potential safety concerns. This comprises one digital booklet on these issues (10 pages max with figures) to be distributed both online and in person (printed version) and 12 posts on social media (monthly basis, Instagram, Facebook and Linkedin), both of Global Shapers Florence and Senza Filtro (blog of Publiacqua);

- perform 100 water quality tests in four live sessions with Publiacqua’s employees that so far do not consume tap water because of quality concerns;

- reach out to 30% of the most vulnerable households (economically and/or socially) among the previous 100 targeted ones to provide them with tap water filters to be added directly to the kitchen faucet and support them with the installation;

- pressure the local water utility with the installation of 5 more public water dispensers to progress with the behavioral shift of Publiacqua’s employees scattered across the territory of Florence;

-create a final report gathering and presenting data on the preferences of citizens of Florence regarding tap water before and after the project (the target is to have shifted the behavior of 100 employees of Publiacqua from bottled water to tap water or filtered water, either at home or by public water dispensers) and suggesting potential streams of action to steer the change towards a more conscious and spread use of it.

This report is meant to be delivered to the addressed citizens, to the authorities of the municipality and finally to the management board of Publiacqua. Once the money has been used to cover the project needs, Publiacqua is expected, together with the municipality of Florence and a big local company, to contribute to further funding needs of the project.

Since the medium-term goal for the project is to shift to tap water use 1000 more people each year, outside of the employees of the utility, the dialogue with the managing boards of the utility could lead to allocating a similar amount of money each year to scale up the project. If 3000 dollars are required to shift the behavior of 100 people, both by awareness campaigns and water tests performed and water filters installed at home, an approximate 10000 dollars are required to scale it up to 1000 more people convinced of using tap water per year.