Big-box retailers cut costs by using their buying power to get volume discounts. In Seattle, Wash., the city’s water and sewerage utility and surrounding municipal water customers apply the same strategy to reduce the expenses of water-conservation programs and, in the bargain, make them more effective.As a result, Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) and 17 others in the Saving Water Partnership (SWP) are near their goal of reducing regional water usage by 10 percent from 2000 to 2010. They did it with a well-crafted, cohesive marketing effort that reached customers better than 18 different programs ever could, says Al Dietmann, the
