Did you know that only one percent of the world’s water is drinkable? Combining design and awareness of the limited amount of drinking water, Wonderwater Café will be launched at the Beijing Design Week this year and in 2012 it will arrive at Helsinki Design Week.

Finns still take clear water for granted, but we only have to travel to central Europe to notice that we can no longer get drinkable water from the tap.

However, many Finns are familiar with the concept of a carbon footprint. There has been a great deal of debate about food footprints and the reduction of water consumption, but not many of us have realized that water also has a carbon footprint.

Water is used for drinking, cooking, washing and other daily activities, but it’s used for industrial purposes more than anything, including the production of food, paper, cotton clothes and almost all other physical products. An average Finn consumes 158 liters of water every day, while industry consumes 4,730 liters of water per person per day.

Wonderwater Café will be launched at the Beijing Design Week at the end of September, with the aim of increasing people’s awareness about the limited amount of water in the world through the means of design. The purpose of the project is to raise awareness of the carbon footprint of water and inspire the visitors to consider the environmental effects of locally and globally produced and distributed food.

Illustrative tools

Wonderwater Café is a part of wide Wonderwater concept, a series of events, which will be seen and experienced in and around Helsinki in 2012. The masterminds behind the concept are Helsinki Design Week’s founder and producer Kari Korkman and consultant, curator and design journalist Jane Withers who is also a member of Helsinki Design Week’s advisory board.

Wonderwater Café will come to Helsinki in 2012 when it may possibly be turned into a permanent version. In China the café will not be built from scratch, but it will be created in cooperation with a local restaurant. In Beijing, Wonderwater Café will tell about the water footprint of individual popular foods and invite the visitors to taste tap water from areas around Beijiing as well as processed water, such as carbonated and purified water, and even holy water.

Wonderwater Café will also illustrate the carbon footprint of different dishes in a concrete way by showing on the menu how much water is used to produce each dish.

The same elements will be repeated in the Finnish version of the café which will probably also include water expertise in cooperation with the Finnish Water Forum.

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Wonderwater Café at Beijing Design Week, 26 September – 3 October 2011.

Text Heini Lehtinen

Helsinki Design Week on 9–18 September 2011. See the complete schedule at www.helsinkidesignweek.com.

Tags:
beijing, finnish water forum, helsinki design week, jane withers, kari korkman, peking, wonderwater