2022 A Year in review at TAPP Water Malta

Our mission is to eliminate plastic bottles for drinking water in Malta.

Our goal is to have 10,000 households using TAPP Water products by 2026.

So, at this time of year we review how we moved towards those goals in 2022.

Double the impact - double the number of #TAPPHeroes in Malta

At the start of 2022 we had 1,600 #TAPPHeroes in Malta and by the end of the year 3,200 #TAPPHeroes had been registered as using a TAPP Water filter at home.

In 2022 we have doubled our impact on the environment through the number of households using TAPP Water products.

33% of our goal achieved

We are now 33% of the way there to our goal of 10,000 households with TAPP water products, and it has taken 30 months to get there. We aim to be at least 50% of our goal by 2024, so please do keep on sharing about TAPP water, it is mostly through our existing customers that we are introduced to new TAPPHeroes.

Over 3 million plastic bottles avoided every year

With over 3,000 households using TAPP Water products to eliminate plastic bottles at home we now collectively avoid 3 million plastic bottles a year.

This saves 99 tons of waste every year and 750 tons of CO2 which is a huge impact on our environment when you consider that the average individual has a total carbon footprint in Malta of just over 5 tons per capita so collectively we now reduce the carbon footprint by 150 people.

5% Reduction in CO2 Footprint every year for 1 individual

TAPP Water is all about impact. For every household that uses TAPP Water products the CO2 footprint of 1 person is reduced by a whopping 5% so the whole family has an impact.

Of course there are many things we can do to reduce our carbon footprint, but this action of eliminating plastic bottles is a significant impact.

Carbon Offsetting

TAPP Water offsets its carbon emissions by planting trees in Malta making an allowance of 1 ton of emissions for every tree planted.

In 2021 we planted 15 trees with the Grow 10 Trees project and this year we more than doubled the offsetting and accounted for some foreign travel, in total making a contribution of 50 trees in Malta.

Defects

504 TAPPHeroes suffered defects to their product, and 888 defects were reported which meant some customers suffered more than 1 defect.

1 type of defect in the valve attachment accounted for most of these issues, and  a new valve was redesigned and launched in September substantially reducing the number of issues reported.

TAPP water in Barcelona has backed us up really well with the defect replacements, however the number of defects and having multiple occurrences for some customers has been a disappointment. With this defect now behind us we would like to see lower defects numbers in 2023 and we are grateful for all those customers and their patience as we resolved the issue.

Social Impact

At TAPP Water in Malta we also aim to give back into the community with actions that have social impact.

This year we supported the HPF Ranger unit on a sponsored walk and donated to Kitty Guardians for the rehabilitation of Floppy.

In addition we continued our support of 13 apartments at Dar il-Miljh through Fondazjoni Sebh and started to increase our support at Dar San Nikola.

We also supported Rise Foundation with 2 units for residents and staff.

We also ran a promotion with Friends of the Earth Malta to support a membership campaign.

We list our social actions for 2022 here.

Support for members organisations and groups

We made arrangements with the Malta Union of Teachers, the Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses, the Malta Police Union and the Maltese Emergency Nurses Association in addition to some larger companies in banking and telecoms for a staff wide discount.

Sustainability

We ran a week of online live interviews with various organisations working in sustainability projects to showcase these projects under the umbrella of the European Week of Sustainable Development.

An expanded team

Annalena joined me on support in August 2022 and has since been the main contact for all customers on WhatsApp, Facebook messenger, email and the phone.

In addition to providing support, Annalena has been documenting procedures, processes and support topics so that when the time comes we can expand our support team.

Customer Service Awards

For the second year running we were one of 5 finalists in the online seller category of the Malta at Premju Servizz Bi Tbissma and we attended the award ceremony.

Social media

Julija joined us in September to take over our social media channels and this year we reached over 10,000 followers on Facebook and over 1,300 on Instagram with some small growth on our presence on Twitter and TikTok.

In particular this year, many more customers have engaged with posts on the popular review groups on Facebook and mentioned TAPP Water in response to topics about plastic bottles, BCRS, reverse osmosis etc... We are hugely grateful when you support the mission in this way, thank you.

Reviews, reviews, reviews

All products now have amazing reviews from TAPPHeroes on both the website, Facebook and Google. Your authentic reviews here are a huge help and most appreciated.

Referrals

This year we had the most customers joining TAPP Water through a personal referral link from an existing customer. All customers can access their own personal link through our loyalty programme and earn points towards spending instore. More details of how to do that are here.

The TAPP On Tour Van is no more

As part of a move towards increased sustainability we moved towards more of an online presence and less visibility at show, events and markets. The costs attached to these events and the carbon footprint in maintaining an older vehicle started to outweigh the benefits and so the TAPP On Tour Van was scrapped in favour of 2 electric bicycles which are now our primary mobility choice in addition to basing ourselves in Gozo.

TAPP Talk Live

In April 2022 we started regular TAPP Talk Live shows broadcast on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and LinkedIn and we have since broadcast 60 shows.

The intention of TAPP Talk Live is to have a platform to answer questions from new and existing customers in a live setting as well as providing a place for showcasing sustainable initiatives in Malta.

Will you subscribe to us on the YouTube channel?

TAPPZero

TAPP Zero is a TAPP Water Malta initiative to remove any waste from the use of our filters. We have been working on this project for over 12 months and at the end of 2022 we have made progress ready to launch this in 2023.

The issues with this project is to maintain compliance to all rules for waste collection and processing in addition to achieving Zero Waste and with alot of work and research with the various authorities and much help from government departments we shall be launching this project in 2023.

Retail Partners

In 2022 we expanded our retail partner list to include some big supermarkets. This did not actually work out too well for either party and so we withdrew from those supermarkets and focussed on the 10 retail partners we have in Malta.

We have exciting plans for 2023 with our TAPP In every Town programme where we will seek to have a retail partner in every one of the 70 towns and cities in Malta by the end of 2023.

Zero-Emission deliveries

This year we worked with E-Deliv our zero emission delivery partner integrating our fulfilment processes and also the collection of any returns or faults. I am pleased to say that this year over 92% of deliveries went without a hitch, although we recognise that as E-Deliv went through a period of substantial growth some delivery times were extended.

Gozo deliveries still take too long and we are working on ways to improve this is 2023. As Gozo residents we understand how this feels!

Looking forward to 2023

Here is what we are looking forward to in 2023

We aim to get to 5,000 households with TAPP Water at home - 50% of our goal!

A TAPP in every town - our retail partner expansion, powered by you with your suggestions of who would make a great TAPP Water retail partner, so that there will be at least 50 TAPP Water Retail Partners by the end of 2023.

TAPPZero - the launch of our zero waste initiative for filter refills - we will be collecting your spent filters and reprocessing them without any waste creation.

More TAPP Talk Lives - we continue this every week follow us on YouTube, and on the Lives we will be incorporating retail partner training.

New customer service platform - a new omnichannel customer service platform so we can keep track of all our conversations on all channels with an expanded team, a new phone number for incoming calls as our WhatsApp number goes business!

More customer referrals, more TAPP points paid out. We really want to expand the amount of points we give out for customer referrals.

New card payment collection by the courier at point of delivery so that those that do not do online shopping have access to TAPP Water.

The TAPP Water Malta APP just download from Apple and Android and place your order, get support and engage with blogs and live shows.

Launching the annual #TAPPHero survey - on attitudes to sustainability and reducing householders carbon footprint.

As always your suggestions on how we can improve our very welcome, this is just what we have planned so far.