This month, UNEP's Green Up campaign challenges residents in European cities and elsewhere to be more conscious of how much water they use by limiting their shower time to the length of their favourite song.

If a bath lasts close to 10 minutes, 160 litres of water has probably already been consumed. This is around 8 times more than the average amount of water that a majority of people in water-scarce regions have access to.

Global water use has been growing at more than twice the rate of population increase in the last century (FAO, UN-Water) and it is further estimated that by 2025, 1 800 million people will be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity.

The GreenUp campaign - organized by UNEP's Regional Office for Europe - aims to raise awareness on the green economy ahead of the upcoming United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in June 2012. The campaign shows the links between the ten sectors of the UNEP Green Economy report (including water, cities and waste, among others) and our everyday lives. It encourages individual actions towards a low carbon, resource-efficient future.