According to Sydney Water figures, every time a car is washed conventionally, 180 litres of water goes straight down the drain. It’s little wonder that waterless wash and detail services have flourished in recent years.

In just four years Sydney-based Ecowash Mobile has shown consumers that you don’t need water to wash a car, and in that time, turned a two-car business into a thriving international franchise operation.

“The concept came to me when my business partner Stuart Nichols was aware of the technology in Europe and we married that up with a service delivery system which is obviously the ability to wash a car anywhere,” says Ecowash Mobile chief executive Jim Cornish.

“We started in Sydney with our own two car operation and since then, in Australia that’s expanded into a fleet of about 56 cars and we’ve also moved into some overseas markets.

“I think everyone has the paradigm that you wash things with water but the reality is water is a very poor lubricant and when you present Australians, in particular, with a new technology I think we embrace that very quickly and so it’s an on-going process.

“If we go with the Sydney Water figure based with the cars that we have on-road at this time, we’re saving in the vicinity of 350,000 litres of water a week.

“So since we started operation we have a water metre on the website that calculates the amount of water saved on a daily basis and that’s adjusted according to our fleet at the time, so since we started in 2004 we’ve saved approximately 34 million litres of water with Ecowashing, as opposed to using traditional methods,” Mr Cornish said..

The Ecowash Mobile system has been utilised by a variety of different car manufacturers in Australia.

“Right now we’re looking after Hyundai at the Brisbane Motor Show; we do work for Lexus, Toyota, Ford, Holden, so when you’ve got that sort of credibility I think the technology has an acceptance all of its own,” Mr Cornish said.

The uptake of interest in Ecowash Mobile has resulted in its rapid expansion as a franchise business and delivered the company a swag of business awards.

These include the Australia Post Small Business Awards for NSW/ACT in 2005; the 2006 Champion of Champions automotive services category award; a 2007 listing in BRW’s Fast Starters Top 100; a 2007 Smart Company 50 award; the 2007 Australian Business Award for Enterprise and naming by the FTA as the emerging franchise system of the year for NSW and ACT for 2007.

The company’s overseas expansion has seen franchise operations set up in the USA, Ireland and France, with more about to launch in Greece and Switzerland.

Not surprisingly, one of the most rapidly expanding market sectors is in the dry nations of the Middle East.

“Presently we operate in the Middle East so we have operations in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Jordan and Bahrain and this year we’re expanding into Turkey, Sudan and also a bit more established in the UAE so we’re moving into Dubai and Abu Dhabi. So it’s a big year in the Middle East.”