In a world where water scarcity and climate change pose imminent threats, one company is plotting a course toward an audacious goal: providing water access to 300 million people by 2030. Grundfos, traditionally known as a pump manufacturer, is at the vanguard of this transformation, reshaping itself into a comprehensive water and climate solutions provider. How? Let’s find out:
with 🎙️ Laura Gallindo – Global Director Strategic Marketing & Communications at Grundfos
with 🎙️ Phillip Tomlinson – Digital Solutions Leader at Grundfos
Resources:
🔗 Say hi to Laura on LinkedIn
🔗 Connect with Phil
🔗 Check Grundfos’ website
🔗 Grundfos acquires Metasphere
🔗 My conversation with Patrick Decker (another pump company turned water tech mogul)
is on Linkedin ➡️
Full Video:
Table of contents
A Mission Beyond Pumps
Grundfos’ journey from a pump company to a holistic water solutions leader starts with a clear mission that goes beyond just machinery. Laura Gallindo, Global Director of Strategic Marketing and Communications, explicitly states, “The core and the heart of Grundfos is to reach 300 million people. It’s a huge ambition by 2030.”
This bold vision is not merely an aspiration but a driving force fueling every decision and innovation within the company. Grundfos is committed to empowering communities worldwide, ensuring reliable water access while tackling climate challenges head-on.
In today’s conversation, Laura emphasized, “We are the first solutions company with a validated Science-Based Target initiative (SBTI) for net zero,” highlighting Grundfos’ dedication to substantial, accountable progress in sustainability.
Their roadmap includes a 50% reduction in absolute numbers of Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2030, with a long-term vision of achieving net zero across all emission scopes by 2050.
Technological Innovations and Strategic Partnerships
One of the core themes discussed was the role of digital innovation in advancing Grundfos’ objectives. Tomlinson highlighted the company’s development of Grundfos Utility Analytics, a tool that integrates various data sources, including AMR and GIS information, to assess and mitigate risks within water networks. This approach underscores Grundfos’ commitment to harnessing technology for optimized water management solutions.
Moreover, Grundfos is engaging in strategic partnerships to enhance its impact. A notable collaboration is with Metasphere, an IoT and analytics company specializing in water and wastewater networks. Tomlinson explained the synergy, stating, “Metasphere’s solutions in wastewater monitoring and analytics are vital in innovating our approach to sewer security and network visibility.”
Addressing Global Water Challenges
The discussion also touched on regional disparities in water management. While Europe, particularly the UK, has heavily invested in wastewater solutions over the past decade, other regions like the U.S. still face significant challenges with outdated and deteriorating infrastructure. “The biggest potential for growth lies within the municipal market in the U.S.,” Gallindo remarked, noting the strategic positioning of their water utility division headquarters in Houston, Texas.
Grundfos’ approach isn’t just technological; it’s also deeply collaborative. By working directly with utilities and offering models that consider both Capital Expenditure (CapEx) and Operational Expenditure (OpEx), Grundfos ensures that solutions are both scalable and sustainable. As Tomlinson put it, “We are offering smart sewer solutions as a full-service model, charging a fee per day based on the utility’s existing infrastructure.”
Grundfos’ Four Strategic Drivers
Grundfos’ transformation strategy is anchored by four key drivers: sewer security, sustainable aquifer management, energy transition, and water access. Each of these drivers addresses critical sectors within the water industry, aiming to foster innovation and sustainable practices.
- Sewer Security: This involves leveraging IoT and data analytics to enhance the stability and efficiency of sewer networks, mitigating risks associated with Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs).
- Sustainable Aquifer Management: Grundfos aims to combat aquifer depletion by providing solutions that help monitor and manage groundwater resources sustainably.
- Energy Transition: Grundfos is on a mission to reduce its carbon footprint significantly. Gallindo proudly mentioned, “We are committed to a 50% reduction in Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2030 and aim for net zero by 2050.”
- Water Access: The flagship initiative aims to ensure water availability to millions worldwide, particularly in underserved regions.
Embracing the Future
Grundfos executives provided a hopeful perspective on the future, envisioning a world where innovative water solutions catalyze positive environmental and social change. By 2030, Gallindo sees Grundfos as a leader in climate and environmental solutions, far beyond being just a pump manufacturer. “We are in the climate business, the decarbonization business, and the water business,” she asserts with confidence.
Phil Tomlinson added, “We are working towards a future where Grundfos can offer network as a service, fully integrating digital and physical solutions for comprehensive water management.”
Conclusion
Grundfos is setting the stage for a transformative decade, leveraging innovation, strategic partnerships, and an unwavering commitment to sustainability. Their ambitious goals and broad vision are a testament to the company’s dedication to becoming a global leader in water and climate solutions. As they continue this journey, Grundfos’ impact on the water industry will likely serve as a blueprint for others aiming to marry technological advancement with environmental stewardship.
Keep an eye on Grundfos; they are not just changing the water industry—they’re rewriting the playbook.
My Full Conversation with Laura Gallindo and Phil Tomlinson (Grundfos)
These are computer-generated, so expect some typos 🙂
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Antoine Walter: Hi, Laura. I feel like the show. So, um, Curious to have Grundfos on that microphone, because if we had had that conversation, let’s say five years ago, it would sound not weird. I’m working for a piping company. I know that the pumping company can be as interesting as a piping company, but still kind of out of context in the scene of being a water player.
But lots of things have changed, and I guess it all started with the acquisition of Eurowater. Or did you have another step before which I missed?
Laura Gallindo: Let’s put it in some context here, right? I have been in the 10 years. I was in DuPont and on the water treatment side and joined Grundfos nine months ago.
They are kind of in the edge of this transformation journey, right? That started with a huge reorg that actually intend to focus on the verticals and be very market face. to be able to enable innovation, M& A activities, and the four verticals that, uh, you know, we’re born with this reorg, one of them is water utilities.
So I’d say more so when you really had a emphasis on the target of the utilities and the other side is agricultural, um, and farmers and things like that. But especially in the utility side, I think enable us and empower us to set out a direction on the strategy. So M& A, I think is. What’s speaking the highest to our innovation, especially in the digital space.
But Grown Foss I think is really rebranding itself to prove that it’s way more than a pump company. It’s already in the DNA and now it needs to be perceived in the brand to have what it takes. And we have a roadmap that hopefully will stand out in the market strongly.
Antoine Walter: I had that conversation on the microphone, I think two years ago with Patrick Decker, who then was the CEO of Xylem and I asked him, is it right to say that Xylem is on a transformational journey?
Maybe 10 years ago, you still were at Xylem. a pump company. You were far more than that, but you were seen by the market like a pump company. Yes. And more and more, you’re a solution provider and you’re kind of bridging different parts of the
Patrick Decker: industry. Is the journey over? That is correct. But the journey is not over.
We have been on a transformation. We will continue to be on a transformation and a transformation, not just in terms of what we bring into our portfolio of solutions from a product and technology standpoint. But also how we work in different ways based on our core. Would that be a fair comparison
Antoine Walter: and is that kind of what you’re heading towards or do you really craft your own path?
Laura Gallindo: I believe that, um, both Xilin and Grundfos, they’re equipped in different ways to, to really show up as a water solution company. I just think that the nature that not only do marketing strategies and the paths we take are unique and Grundfos is really bringing that, um, family Private owned DNA, right? So 87.
5 percent of Grandfus is owned by the foundation. And just, this gives us the ability to think on how we combine charity, how we combine a scaling financial trust fund module, right? Uh, with some partners that were even speaking here today that were in conversations, how we embed what access in our business module as the core and heart of Grandfus is to reach 300 million people.
It’s a huge ambition. By 2030,
Antoine Walter: 300 million people by 2030, which means you have a metric for 2024.
Laura Gallindo: That’s the thing. This ambition is a huge statement. We’re not byproduct of the number. We’re not surpasses. It’s possible to want to discuss what it takes to get there and be very open and transparent on saying that’s not easy and what are just difficult and what are going to do different.
To reach that. So one of the things you’re gonna do that actually, you’re gonna have a spoiler here is a partnership with the Economist Intelligent Unit of the Economist, where you’re gonna lead the way on helping the industry understanding how we can really be assertive and reliable, right? By having a third party validation on the parameters.
to measure access. So different players, they have out there different kind of targets by different years. What’s really wanted to kind of be accountable for the industry to be accountable for is about the measurement. So this is going to be a tool that’s really going to be enabled the industry.
Phil Tomlinson: That’s not saying something we will do.
We’re actively doing it. I can’t tell you what the 2024 number is, but we have a whole team of people who are actively doing this. And there’s a whole set of the organization that’s sculpted into actually how we push and pursue these and whether it’s. Through our own solutions and in pushing that through whether it’s putting the right thing into market, but ultimately with the stg6 goal in mind It’s not an aspiration.
It’s real life in the organization feel as you’re taking the
Antoine Walter: microphone Who of you arrived into groonforce first you as the external acquisition out of xpv portfolio and now into groonforce’s? Yeah, very rich family of solutions. Are you you mentioned you’re in for nine months if I had to bend?
Phil Tomlinson: Um, yeah, well, actually, I’m a little less than nine months for Grundfos, but obviously, I’ve been with Metasphere for 12 years.
So I’ve come with Metasphere as part of the acquisition. And I’ve now moved into working directly for Grundfos in the digital leadership team.
Antoine Walter: Let’s first get everybody up to date so that we then discuss Metasphere and how you integrate into Grundfos. But what’s Metasphere, how does it start and how does it lead to the acquisition by Grundfos?
Phil Tomlinson: Metasphere are an IoT and analytics business that are focused on water and wastewater networks for municipalities. That’s probably 98 percent of their business operating across the UK, Europe, the Middle East and Australia. particularly strong presence in Australia as well as the UK. They started really in 2006 as a management buyout of Logica, doing regional controlled telemetry systems through to RTU, mains power control, data loggers, and then the last probably 10 years we’ve become much better known for our wastewater network services, whether it’s monitoring of CSOs or SSOs, depending on where you are in the world, as well as billing.
pump station integration, treatment work integration, control systems, and the last couple of years with the ArtSewer solution into kind of the mass visibility of wastewater networks, integrating lots of kind of visual kind of data from the networks as well as into analytics so you can really get some strong visibility of the problems you’re seeing and how we challenge those.
Antoine Walter: And so your key investor used to be XPV until 2023 when you changed home and now you’re part of Grundfos.
Phil Tomlinson: That’s right. Yep.
Antoine Walter: Are you still in the integration process? process or are you now a full part of Grundfos?
Phil Tomlinson: That might vary who you ask to be honest. I ask you first. Yeah, so it’s not between us but possibly between people.
So Metasphere is still a standalone business within the water utility division of Grundfos, which probably explains why I say it depends who you ask. Whereas obviously I’ve stepped across and I fully work for Grundfos. The team who, apart from me with a transition who came over, are still working and driving Metasphere forward.
Antoine Walter: So you spun out out of Metasphere and now you’re part of Grundfos straight ahead. Yeah, that’s right. What’s your role then at Grundfos?
Phil Tomlinson: So I’m
Antoine Walter: the
Phil Tomlinson: digital solutions leader for water utilities. There’s four of us in the digital leadership team and my role is very much looking at actually, I sit between product development, product management, the tech and innovation function and the Metasphere development functions to look at how we bring and collate the right solutions together for the market.
It’s interesting for me having been a commercial director in this space for a really long time, but with the market understanding, This is what we need to do. And how do we align the organization to deliver that?
Antoine Walter: When you say need to do, is it stuff which can be done internally by moving pieces? Or does that mean adding new parts of the puzzle and eventually further build what Cornforce will be offering in the future?
Both from my perspective.
Phil Tomlinson: So there are things that where we link Metasphere solutions and the analytics arm of Metasphere, which is formerly called Meniscus into some of the existing Grundfos digital solutions, some of the existing Grundfos physical solutions, but also how we work with our partners, how we work with partners, Metasphere, historically, how we work with new partners, new, new market entrances is very much part of the option.
We’re not only in a, we’ll do it ourselves or we’ll acquire, you always get to that stage. If you work with another party and there’s a natural fit, it’s always an option. It’s always a potentially good option. If you’re the small party in that conversation, you know, that’s not the be all end all.
Antoine Walter: Let’s just check the first principles because I don’t want to give the impression force is paying monopoly because the foundation has money and can just spend it.
I guess, not I guess, I’m pretty sure of it. There must be a rational behind those moves as to what to build across what verticals. You mentioned four different verticals. How did you come up with four verticals? Do you know why? And then let’s take the one you’re specifically building to understand how the buildup is happening.
Laura Gallindo: Yeah, let’s put some context here on ground force, right? So we’re talking about the end of the second world war of 1945. The founder in his basement came up with, you know, a very innovative pump for that time. And since then have been leading the way. On that kind of innovation and edge on pump, but we have been spreading a hundred countries.
We have 60 entities, but you had to understand what markets you want to play to win. So with that strategy assessment, we decided that commercial, domestic, industry, and water utilities. would be the four verticals. So they, I would say that, um, industry as always has kind of that, uh, volume and presence, right?
They, they all have their importance, of course, in the strategic representation. The water utilities, it speaks very closely to the purpose and that’s not for coincidence that the safe water division, that’s our water access. So it’s an actual business. as a P& L and we have customers and all of that. So this is under the umbrella of water utilities, right?
But this is aligned with our mothership. It’s the 300 million I mentioned. What’s
Antoine Walter: the difference between commercial and industrial?
Laura Gallindo: When you talk about domestic, you’re talking about the heating, the cooling and the residential environment. And then for commercial, you’re talking about buildings and institutions.
So hotels
Phil Tomlinson: are apartment blocks. And it’s a really interesting operational split because obviously it was done to keep the teams closer to their customer basis and become more specialized. But the products available within each of the divisions are not uniquely available to those divisions. So each of the divisions cross sells across their functions to that.
Again, that’s physical and digital.
Antoine Walter: Stupid question to a company which is under a foundation and which hence doesn’t report any numbers publicly, but I will still try. If we take the water utility vertical, What’s your turnover and do you have targets to grow it in the next, let’s say, five, ten years?
There are always targets. I guess you have, but do you have some you can share?
Laura Gallindo: We can report, so last year in 2023, we reported 4. 6 billion euros in revenue across all divisions. The water utilities is smallest in revenue with the biggest potential for growth, especially in the municipal market. You look at the U.
S. as the single largest utility market. The headquarters for the water utility division is based in just out of Houston, in Brookshire, in Texas, uh, for a very strategic position in the U. S. So we are a player, but when you’re talking about scaling the water utilities, uh, vertical municipal, uh, is something that’s going to be key.
And planning waste water. And Metasphere is back here, a great ally for us to really create a new role in the value chain. And unlock not only what Metasphere is bringing immediately with the know how on source security, but how the telemetry, how the sensors, how IoT is going to play a key component for us in our innovation roadmap.
Only associate that with pumps and our controls and everything else, so.
Antoine Walter: But still, within Water Utility, you would have like the sexy part, drinking water. And, uh, I’m a wastewater to gas, right? I’m allowing myself to say that and the not so sexy part, which is everything linked to sewer and wastewater. And then within that not so sexy part, you can take the novel part, which is the wastewater treatment plant, or you can really take the literal sheet hole, which is the, the network and the sewer network.
And you say that’s. That’s my spot. How do you end up focusing on that? And what’s the market ratio of the challenge which you want to overcome where you think you have a differentiated approach and differentiated solution?
Phil Tomlinson: I wouldn’t say that there is the clean water versus wastewater sex separation you described there.
I think there is definitely a process to network separation within the organization. So you think about how they might be using commercial or industry. It’s a very processed part of a network, an internal clean network, then that definitely falls into that category. But I think for, for wastewater, it’s an area that has a huge amount of focus for innovation in the organization at the moment.
Actually, from a, from a divisional piece, a lot of the upcoming programs and products that we were coming through are in that sector. It’s not just around the kind of IOT space that Metasphere sits in, it is that how do we address this whole space as an organization and take a really concerted approach to try and drive change in this space.
Antoine Walter: But why would wastewater have a greater potential for innovation than drinking water?
Phil Tomlinson: My personal view is it’s globally behind. If you look at the investment profiles and where money has been spent, and this is across by utilities, by investors, as well as by an R and D and supply chain. If you look at the last 40 years, I would say 35 years of that has been highly focused on clean water.
Whether it’s leakage, whether it’s NRW, whether it’s metering, for example, that’s where the focus has been. Europe more broadly and very specifically the UK, the last 10 years, there’s been a real increase in investment in wastewater. The U S is a bit, it’s probably a bit. More balance but it’s the nature of the structure the market is quite different over there I think it definitely follows that there’s a lot more to be done in waste water it’s not it’s definitely not around the the kind of zeitgeist piece around this actually everyone’s incredibly upset with CSO kind of usage at the moment which is because everyone’s become aware of it rather than it being a new thing
Antoine Walter: on that specific topic.
combines with overflow CSO, isn’t that like the first ever victim on record of machine learning? Because to me, it’s like nobody ever looked what was happening and it was happening, but all of a sudden you get a machine’s brain who can see that there are patterns in flow and that those patterns mean that not all the water is flowing until the wastewater treatment plant where we measure the flow.
So it must be spilling from somewhere. And then you look at that somewhere and you find out to be the CSOs.
Phil Tomlinson: I would actually say it wasn’t that sophisticated, and I would say probably 99 percent of networks don’t have that level of sophistication today. Less of a
Antoine Walter: network, it would be like the treatment plants, which would see
Phil Tomlinson: You’re looking at an overflow point in a network, yeah, so bypass kind of storm channels at treatment work are an interesting, very sensible protection mechanism, but the challenges they present in terms of the environmental challenge of that is a really difficult conversation to have because it’s, If you don’t do that and you actually destroy your biological process at works, well what, what are you going to do for the next six months?
You can’t reverse the hydraulics of the network. So if you take out the treatment work, so you’re just going to be bypassing through that storm channel anyway.
Antoine Walter: Let me just get it in my work, because I had your explanation before we recorded, so I want to get everybody on that understanding level because what you say here is super interesting and super important, which is basically when you have an overflow in the sewers, there’s a rain event.
The first wave might be loaded, but the next waves are water. So you have a lot of water. One option is to use the overflow and then to flush it to the river, which has environmental consequences. The other option is to drive everything to the wastewater treatment plant, which, and that’s where your input is super interesting.
If you’re putting all that water with low loads or different loads compared to what’s usual into your biology, basically you’re washing off your biology, and then of course you have a better control over what’s going to flow into the river, but a biology needs weeks to months to recover, which means that your quality of treatment overall is going to suffer for the next Weeks as best to months.
That is the first time today. I’m hearing that probably because I wasn’t listening to the right people, probably. But still, that is super interesting because that puts into perspective what’s happening with the CSO.
Phil Tomlinson: It’s a choice. It’s a bad choice. But that’s actually this. But really, there’s probably two main reasons that they were designed to networks.
One is to protect the works. But the very original reason was actually to stop properties flooding further down the chain. They’re often referred to as a relief valve, release valve by people in the industry for exactly that purpose. Yeah, you could seal them up and none of the CSOs would discharge, but the amount of domestic flooding you’d get on the back of that.
You’ve also got the, the fact that actually the patterns of weather have changed. And the sewers were designed to cope with a pattern of rainfall. And this is kind of a global aspect of this that isn’t true anymore. You know, UK, they were designed for long, continuous rain. periods of kind of steady rainfall.
Yeah, we do still get that, certainly from this winter it would be, would be proven, but it’s the short sharp storms now that cause all the problem. And they’re also the things that are the hardest to keep at the sewers. Actually, you can keep those longer duration kind of low intensity pieces, you can use all the Well, the kind of surface training, surface water mechanisms, which are absolutely needed and really help.
But actually, if you have an incredibly sharp and high intensity storm, it’s going to get in there. And where, where you probably get an interesting piece that you were going before is actually, well, can you get to the point when you can discharge because you know, it’s only stormwater. So that second flow piece you were talking about before, that’s something that’s not really been done at the moment.
And with all the talk around water quality legislation and requirements, kind of moving hit into place in the UK in a year’s time, that could be an interesting angle to go forward. It’s actually, are we taking the conversation to say we want to get below 10 spills or we’re taking the conversation to we want to have zero impactful spills?
I don’t think that’s quite in the dialogue at the moment.
Laura Gallindo: And just an observation there, because we were in London, um, in another summit, right, a month ago, and, uh, there are city of Paris, uh, London, uh, New York, so many cities and there was a cohesive, you know, positioning. that they are committed to zero spills.
What’s it going to take together, but nobody want to be driven by meeting the regulation?
Phil Tomlinson: Well, that’s also when it’s one combined entity. When you’ve got a body that’s responsible for two different bodies looking at pluvial and fluvial flooding, but actually you’ve got a body that’s looking at surface water management and also a different body that’s looking at kind of underground water management.
But if they’re not actively working together on this, you’ve got no chance of resolving that. Because we also work with C40, the leading cities in the world, and that’s a challenge. We’ve actually started to look with them as to how they can predict and manage the impact of stormwater, actually looking at it as a human safety impact.
Where’s it going to get flooded? Where do we need to proactively manage and actually get kind of resources out to help protect people on this. That’s the focus of that. We’re still kind of helping and working to say actually we need to connect with the utility providers here so we can we can solve the same problem.
And it’s, that’s been a battle for years. You know, there’s one of the things around sustainable kind of drainage is actually looking at green spaces, urbanized green spaces. Getting funding for that through a traditional water process is really difficult. There’s loads of funding coming through. kind of air quality and green spaces impact air quality in cities.
Getting those two kind of schemes put together so the impact in the right places, again, is one of those things that we need to get better at as urban areas.
Antoine Walter: There’s a lot to unpack into that. I will just redirect the people because I had a conversation on that microphone with Glasgow City Council. It’s that far from Glasgow where they have this approach of having merged together every single water entity so that they could have those management of green spaces, keep the water on the surface, the smart canal and stuff like that.
That’s kind of a hint into the direction where it should be going. I have story time, my personal life. I’m the son of a hydraulic modeler. When. People were watching like cartoons as kids we had like vhs but not of cartoons we had like floods 1991 was a good one flood 1993 was a good one so my father used to record those and we knew that when we were going out on vacation just after.
Christmas between christmas and new year you would have one out of two year of flood event and he would leave to go and and have a look at that but he has been working his entire career. On the same place. Same department, same catchment area. So he knew that looking at three specific flow meters, he would have a pretty accurate idea of if he could go out and ski with us, or if he has to take the car and go home because that something’s gonna happen.
Where I’m leading with that story is that what this tend to tell me is that the truth is not so much in the network because when you’re in the network you’re almost too late to act because you get like reactive to what’s happening out there in the catchment. The truth is in modeling what’s happening in the catchment and in getting like the accurate data at all those points.
Models exist. It’s a conversation I had on the podcast as well with Imre Takacs from the podcast. dynamiter, modeling exists since the 80s. And it’s another conversation that I want to throw all of them that I have with Katiem about the specific modeling of the catchment of a water basin, for instance.
Yeah. The tools exist. Absolutely. Why can’t we just align on saying, hey, We take everything under one roof and we act on it. And the reason why I’m raising this question to you, when I might be raising the question to a municipality or something like that, is that as a company building a vertical cold water utility and looking at this kind of stuff, you would have the power to say, Hey, maybe what I’m missing is grab Catium or something like that, grab a sensor company and put everything under one roof and say that is our solution to whatever is happening in terms of stormwater management, sewer overflow, and sorry, 12 questions in one.
Phil Tomlinson: I think there’s a couple of them I can probably unpack without coming back on that. So, aside from the comment of models are as good as the point when they are finished being put together, models for wastewater have historically been really challenging because they’re not pressured. You don’t have constant flow, just the whole dynamic of it is completely different.
You couple that with the fact that They’ve never really had much data be put into them, let alone any real time data, because the kit wasn’t installed, even where you’ve got pumps in the network, actually getting usable flow rate data from those pumps. is not common. So I think the, the role of models within this is changing and actually we have to utilize what’s already been put in place.
There are no consideration. There’s no consideration of we have to start again on this. It’s just, it’s impossible. But whether it’s looking at existing pumps, how do we connect those through existing instrumentation, existing models? How do we layer into that things like accurate kind of hyperlocal rain forecasting models, how do we actually put the machine learning piece, how do we, that, that.
PC was talking about your dad’s experience that he knew under those conditions under those sensors, he had to go and do something, but that was at one place, actually, how can we, the solutions exist have exactly that approach across the whole network. You can do that with data. It’s already in, you might want to put additional kind of data collection sources in, if you’ve got particular hotspots or actually one of the main.
The main things that Metasphere did that really got Grunfoss excited was the art sewer piece. It was actually around getting visibility of sewer networks, getting past just understanding a discharge point, because if you’re back into that, it’s too late, you’re just reporting at that stage.
Laura Gallindo: You’re not preventing.
If you want to get into that
Phil Tomlinson: prevention piece, you have to, you have to build an actual model That gives you what’s going on in the network. And to do that, you have to start getting more information. Actually, one of the key parts of my role with Grunfoss going forward is how do we, how do we build what you were just talking about?
Because we have a lot of the building blocks. If you look actually a lot of the work that’s been, we’ve got pumps and we’ve got deep, deep understanding of pumps and how they operate and actually what. what the curves of performance mean on those. But you start to link that with some of the existing digital tools around condition monitoring, around remote performance at bumps, into some of the work done by Metasphere into understanding flows and dynamics of flows for the network and catchments.
And you start looking at saying, well actually we’ve got a good flow right here, you can actually model through expected flows across catchments as well as understanding the risk at your discharge points. And then you start to get into some of the river quality pieces and say, well we know, is this water utility problem?
Is this an agricultural problem? Is this a road problem? would run off problem, which is not something that’s really talked about very much at all, but it’s a massive contaminant. If we don’t start thinking about this as my use cases, kind of a holistic network or a series of kind of connected assets that we have to do that, it’s absolutely mandatory.
But if we don’t start getting a kind of a broader stakeholder engagement on this to actually try and solve the problem, rather than just solving bits of the problem, we’re going to spend. Well, we’ll spend the rest of our careers talking about it.
Antoine Walter: You mentioned the roads and the wash off. I don’t have the exact statistic in mind anymore, but a good percentage of the micro plastics we see are actually what’s washed off from the tires, which leave stuff on the road.
So
Phil Tomlinson: let them break dust and type is attires and all kinds of horrible stuff that’s isn’t there? Yeah, absolutely.
Antoine Walter: Which And it’s part of my notes I took in a workshop you had earlier today, which leads me to all those stories around the sewer overflows. It’s bad press. You will never have, like, good press about, hey, no sewer overflow, that’s supposed to be the standard.
Even if people don’t get that, maybe it’s good that from time to time you have an overflow of rainwater. That is something that people can grasp and understand. So what they do is that they grasp it, and they express their misalignment with what’s happening, because that’s Pretty straightforward, shit water goes to the river.
How do you bring that other message forward that it’s not only that? Yes, some of what’s in the sewer is going to rivers and we should manage that, but what we said before about what’s happening in the treatment plant, all the other sources like agricultural runoff and stuff like that, and all the other aspects which need more education, more and more
Phil Tomlinson: misuse.
Sue, is that part of your mission? The bad press and the vilification of Ford companies over CSO discharges? I feel decidedly, I have two faces of it. I have one, which is, yeah, that’s really bad. And it’s, I think the scale of it, the fact that it’s happening is I understand ’cause of what I do. Some of the biggest kind of bad press has been around the choices that those companies have made and how they’ve behaved around it.
Actually bringing a light to that I think is an incredibly good thing. And actually, if we hadn’t had this change in the public’s engagement with this, would we now be seeing the drive we’re seeing to get this resolved in what we’re talking about doing? Yeah, but not, certainly not on the timeline we’re now talking about.
So actually, whilst it might be very uncomfortable at the moment, I think it’s an incredibly good thing. The continued general education? Yeah, I think that’s awesome. Everyone’s responsibility. It’s certainly everyone’s responsibility who is engaged with it and understands a bit about it. I think the conversation we were having earlier is the understanding about choice.
That’s never talked about. It’s just a, you did this, you’re bad, you’re wrong. But that’s a, I think that’s a general current kind of media representation thing more than anything else. If you’re looking at an example of how the industry has tried, actually quite hard, and hasn’t got there yet in terms of managing that education and PR pieces around wet wipes, so back to the misuse piece, we’re still not there on that.
Antoine Walter: Fatbergs.
Phil Tomlinson: We’re not even close to being there on that, and actually that’s got quite a broad public consensus. What lessons can we learn from that in terms of what can we do, and actually what do we need the public to do to make this happen?
Antoine Walter: We talked about the challenge. We talked about what you’re building with your water utility.
vertical and divisional Grundfos. I would like to have like a bit of hope, like what’s, what are you building and where are you heading towards? And in your glossary, which is distributed to people attending your round table, there is gold standard. Gold standard, what the water sector should be aiming for, the key objectives and strategies to provide the best possible outcomes.
It’s written next to a Grundfos logo. So I guess that’s what you’re building. What is your offer to those utilities? What are some numbers? Where you can say, working with grown force and our suite of solutions today, you could unlock this, this, this, and down the line. On top of that, you’re gonna have also the this and this.
Replace the this with actual facts.
Laura Gallindo: source security was just born literally, which is and and is the most mature of the four themes We chose to set the direction. Of the water utilities. And just to put some context, Antoine, on the groundwater and irrigation side, we are dealing with the sustainable aquifer management.
If you’re a pump company contributing to the problem of depleting our aquifers from having this vantage point, how we can make sure that in our roadmap of innovation, we’re going to have the sensors and everything that actually helps our customers understand when, to move, how, and, you know, how to replenish.
So back to the sewer security side, this is really part of our thought leadership. So it’s really not about the one that we find
Antoine Walter: Before we go back to the sewer security, so you said four. Sewer security.
Laura Gallindo: So let’s talk about the four, uh, drivers. I’ll say drivers, even back to your, is that about drinking water waste?
What I’ll say that not really about that, but about what’s going to drive. Sewer security, whatever it takes, what’s going to drive sustainable quake free management, we, uh, kindly call SAM. Energy transition, that’s a transversal, right? To actually to ground flows in all divisions. And, uh, water access.
That’s the one I mentioned before in terms of our ambition, right? And you have a whole division with more than 20 people just dedicated.
Antoine Walter: 10 percent of the energy in the world. is consumed by pumps. As Tom alluded to swiftly between two transitions today, the water sector alone has five times more carbon emission than the entire aviation sector.
And a lot of that is the pumps. So what is your hot take on energy transition? What are you, what
Laura Gallindo: So energy transition is all about climate, right? For us in decarbonization. So it’s really in Grundfos. By the way, we are the first one solutions company with a validated SBTI. So the science based net zero target, which is a huge process to even be approved.
So with pride that we change frameworks, we had to hire experts to even get there. Right? So this means that we have a whole roadmap. By 2030, we are committed to 50 percent reduction in absolute. Numbers of scope 1 and 2, but 99 percent of our footprint is in Scope 3. So although this sounds fancy, it is a huge challenge to get that resolved when a product is out of our gate, right?
Super fair
Antoine Walter: for you to mention this straight away. You set a target of 50 percent on Scope 1 and 2 and actually We have a target. Scope 3 is your customers, right?
Laura Gallindo: Is our customers. Upstream
Phil Tomlinson: and downstream, so it’s supply chain as well as So how do you
Laura Gallindo: Scope 2 is energy, right? So our supply chain in terms of energy and 3 encompasses the customers.
and the entire supply chain, but
Antoine Walter: do you have a target? We have,
Laura Gallindo: we have a target. So by 2030, we’re going to have a commitment for 25 percent reduction in absolute scope tree and by 2050, net zero across all the scopes.
Antoine Walter: How do you do that? You do that with wifi, water, wireless.
Laura Gallindo: There’s the whole framework, climate action, water action, circular business, water access.
So there is a whole, and even this is a commitment. in the SBTI. So the parameters that you’re setting for this commitment has been audited and reported through the
Phil Tomlinson: most reliable. One of the big things that we look at is things like natural capital. There’s actually quite a lot of recent talk around the fact that we don’t value natural capital properly.
And actually it certainly doesn’t get its way properly into business case justifications. All of the existing target driven around sustainability, none of it actually makes allowance for what we’ve just been talking about doing. It’s all around efficiency. You think about as a pump company, it’s all going to come down to how much and how they’re built and how we can enforce that.
But actually, when you start looking at the capability we can drive and the benefits we can drive, you can actually get net positive actions out of a lot of the stuff we’re starting to do. At the moment, that is quite difficult to calculate, but there’s a lot of work being done. Not by us, but actually by bodies as to how we do that properly to really get everyone thinking along these lines.
Antoine Walter: Beyond the joke I made about wireless water, to get my understanding right on that, that means pumps will always need to consume energy, which means they will always have a kind of impact, even if that energy becomes fully green, it’s going to have for sure, but still there will be some residual impact.
What you’re saying is that, for instance, if I’m keeping water on the surface, then I’m recreating green space, that green space has to have a positive impact, in which case my kind of nature based solution, which is an actuated way to have an extensive part of the network, will compensate for those emissions.
And that’s just one example we’re picking on, because that’s probably the hardest to measure. You might have some other ones which are easier to measure, like biogas production, you know, waste freedom plant and stuff like that. So that’s how you bring everything into a, it’s bringing things into a balance.
It’s not like bringing energy to zero and then, okay, you have verticals. Sewer security is a vertical, sustainable aquifer management is a vertical, and then you have water access, I guess, is a vertical as well, and then the horizontal would be energy transition.
Laura Gallindo: Yeah, so they are drivers of our strategy. I see.
Yeah, they’re drivers and enablers. So basically, when you decide from a product development perspective, right, from the marketing activation, you set. Your focus, our founder would say, the world is full of problems that you can solve in a better way. If you try to really resolve the thousands that is in our reach, we’re not going to have any impact, you know?
So like streamlining that focus is more for really a business strategy standpoint, which follows through with our marketing strategy, with our product development strategy, with our M& A strategy. So empower ourselves to be not only start a conversation, like sustainable equity for management doesn’t have the material that sewer security has.
This is a boat. This, this took like internal chills to be overcome for us to even be talking about as a pump company. You don’t talk about depletion of aquifers, right? You are pumping water. Plus if the
Antoine Walter: aquifer is depleting, you need stronger pumps, bigger pumps. But that’s
Laura Gallindo: the thing, the numbers are huge and We had enough.
We’re not only pumping and and contributing to the degradation, but why we do that to have a huge footprint of carbon, and this is what ownership is, is that we have had enough, we are making our own assessment, we being vulnerable and transparent, but we’re also gonna create a business module that addresses this strategy.
So this is more so a driver night strategy that you wanted to fulfill. And this is just the beginning.
Antoine Walter: Good. Really great on you. But why?
Laura Gallindo: Because we are not a pump company. We are water solutions, right? Our purpose is to really create solutions to address the water and climate challenges. Yeah,
Phil Tomlinson: I think you used the word in there that actually is the driver of this.
People don’t work for the company because their purpose is to work for a pump company. There might be some still because that’s how they started, right? But I think it’s the increasing recognition that people need. People want to make a difference. Well, the point when the, the Metasphere acquisition was coming to a close, there was such a clear alignment on those cultural purposes that at that stage from being in the outside, we could see that this was before the kind of piece around social security and the sustainable black for management.
You could see that drives make a difference. And I think this is giving it a body. This is giving it a really targeted specific body that the parts of the organization can really get behind. And it might be one of those, it might be multiple of those, but it’s, it definitely embodies. That purpose in a fit that’s right for today
Antoine Walter: coming back to my question on sewers security i’m super happy about the sidetrack because we learn a lot of stuff here what would be your drivers and what you can offer your customers when it comes to security which you can then put like facts and figures and say working with ground force here’s.
Your perks.
Phil Tomlinson: There’s a couple of things. I mentioned before that our position is we’re not requiring anyone to replace anything. So we will work with them on where they’re at. Everyone’s at a different stage on their journey on this one. We have lots of bits of the puzzle we can plug in there. We have a huge amount of expertise in the organization about lots of parts of that chain.
And actually what, Where we’re going to get to with this is actually broadening out those engagements and partnerships with other bodies. We can be that organization that brings that wrap around it. I could easily sit here and say, yeah, I’m going to come to you and you’re not going to have any spills from your network when you deploy this solution.
Yeah, I could say that, but proving it is something quite different. At the moment, there are too many things that even if we took that wholesale approach, there will be too many things that are still outside of our control. So it’s going Going to have to be that, that kind of long term partnership with a utility.
We’re quite happy to put skin in the game on this. We have that approach that we will do this as a partnership. It’s not, you’re going to pay us all this money and we’re just going to do some stuff for you. And then if it, something doesn’t quite go right, we walk away. It can’t operate like that. This is not going to change overnight.
Antoine Walter: Broad answer to a broad question. So my bad, let me be more specific. I’m going to take two use cases. And for each of these use cases, you’re going to give me one single. added value you can bring as Grunfos. My use case number one is probably going to be for you. My use case number two is probably good for you.
Use case number one, I’m a UK utility name kept private because we don’t want to point fingers. And I have that problem of sewer overflows and I might be under capitalized right now. So I’m not quite sure I can put some CapEx into my network. What can you do for me?
Phil Tomlinson: The move to non CapEx based solutions isn’t restricted by supply chain.
It’s actually generally restricted by the need to get things onto the balance sheet here. By the way that the utilities work, what I will actually say is in other areas of the world, we are offering the kind of smart sewer solutions as a full as a service model. We’re charging them as a, as a X amount per day.
I say X amount because it varies slightly depending on where you are in the world and what they already have. That is absolutely not a restriction to doing something. And you can start small. You can start a catchment. You can start a subcatchment. We’re doing work where we’re looking at modeling the impact of rainfall at a subcatchment level for utilities in North America at the moment.
So actually we can tell you exactly on your trunk mains, where this is hitting and where it’s coming from the network. And we could start to model down the impacts of those into actually your, your problem areas. It isn’t a capex issue from a UK perspective. There is a timing issue, which anyone who operates here will understand.
Pretty well at the moment, but it’s, we’re also seeing an acceleration into unpaid at the moment as people are starting to use transitional funding to get things started. It can be done as CapEx, it can be done as OpEx and whether or not anyone is actually really looking at a Totex conversation here, there is a way of getting things done.
Antoine Walter: Great answer, but I feel like. Then my second use case isn’t that pertinent either, but I’m going to try it. Nevertheless, my second use case is going to be US based this time. The US has these study done by the EPA regularly about the states of the networks and every time it’s a bit worse. So they have crumbling networks to, to put words on it.
Roughly 32 percent on the latest study of the network were. in out of order or time elapsed categories. So really the cost to bring back that into shape is at the latest estimate, 600 something billion dollars. Okay. Pretty bad situation to start with, which means that they are leaking 150 liters per day per capita.
Does Grundfos has a solution for that?
Phil Tomlinson: I think from a pure, yes, take some of that out, from a pure leakage piece, then actually as a field, as a field hardware solution, actually, when you think what Grundfos is known for, not from a digital solution. Yes. One of the tools in the digital suite, uh, is called Grundfos Utility Analytics.
And one of the main things it does is it incorporates AMR, AMI data into the platform, along with all the GIS information, anything you’ve got from SCADA. And it will look at things like condition assessment. So you’ll look at risk, risk kind of categories within your network of actually bits of pipe replacement, where you’ve got expected leakage based on those flow rates and your AMR data.
That is perfectly doable within tools we have today. From a traditional, have these bits of kit we can send out to the operatives in the field. No, we don’t do that. But actually from a coordinated kind of system solution piece, we have that today. And I think that in itself is quite indicative of the, of the journey that Grundfos are going on at the moment, moving away from just being a pump company.
Laura Gallindo: None of the four drivers are digitalization. Digital, right? But they are pretty much the enabler of everything we mentioned. And source security is kind of when you ask, We ask about the golden standards is a big problem. Nobody has a solution, but definitely need to work around and technology and digital is the path, right?
Antoine Walter: I noted it and I’m so glad of it because that’s, that’s a good sign because companies with the digitalization as, as a driver in 2024 is so 2000 ish. I mean, it’s, it’s a horizontal. So it’s, it’s good that you treat it that way in my very humble opinion, which is worth what it’s worth. To, to close that deep dive, I have a simple question, which is, I get that Grundfos is no longer a pump company.
That’s you are into a transition period. You have a lot of target by 2030. So please, for each of you complete me that sentence by 2030
Laura Gallindo: Grundfos is by 2030. Groofers is a climate environmental water solutions company. I would say that we are on the climate business. We are on the decarbonization business and the water business as a brand.
It’s a big ambition, but that’s, I mean, marketing. So I can, I can’t have it. say,
Phil Tomlinson: spot the marketing versus the technology first. The technology,
Laura Gallindo: the rationale. I’m like, what are the emotions going to evoke?
Phil Tomlinson: My kind of North Star I’m trying to change the moment is how do we build as a network, as a service, certain tools that fits into that broadest question is how do we plug in and actually how do we change things?
And actually, we get to the point where we’re really monetizing, you know, you know, meters flow, meters can flow out of a pump, sell a pump that way. If we can actually get an organization as big as ours into that kind of path, then we can shape the world a bit differently.
Antoine Walter: I think we have two halves of the same truth and, uh, reconciling it together is, Pretty interesting.
Thanks a lot for everything you shared in this deep dive. To round it off, I have a set of rapid fire questions which are tailored for the Bluetech forum. So you’re going to know that. Leave it up to you if you want to answer both of you all of the questions or if you want to design someone of you who answers each of the questions.
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Rapid fire questions:
Antoine Walter: The first one is what is your definition of innovation in action?
Laura Gallindo: Collaboration is all I think it’s, uh, breaking out from the thinking of the water, right? Water talks to water and do a great job on that, right? It’s when you break out of the bubble and we really take one agenda, we have one goal and we all stick together.
Right. But how can you really make that stronger to the Elon Musk of the world? You know, so for me, innovation that we need, where we need to go, the scale we need to go is to do the great things you’re doing, faster pace, higher scale and out of our ecosystem.
Antoine Walter: You mentioned Elon Musk in between. He has solved the water crisis.
I don’t know if you know, but, uh, desalination and solar power. That’s it. You said it. So it’s, it’s good. I’m not even sure why we all meeting here because. Why did I
Laura Gallindo: even bring this name up here?
Antoine Walter: That gives you a little bit more time to think about innovation and action. Sorry for the rant. Without being
Phil Tomlinson: thrown off by Elon Musk.
I think where I was going with that is actually innovation and action for me is living with change with purpose. So innovation is actually just about change. It’s not about technology because it’s just much more. processing people. Actually, if we have change and purpose and drive to do it, innovational action will happen.
Antoine Walter: What is the most innovative water solution you’ve seen in the past 12 months?
Laura Gallindo: Technology can be a module for
Phil Tomlinson: me. Up to you. I remember seeing, a year ago, one of the simplest but brilliant innovation solutions I’ve had for a long time. It was almost these tiny little, almost like rubberized peas, that were injected into clean water network and they were almost sucked into a leak.
I really can’t think what they’re called, but it was this incredibly simple, brilliant innovation. for solving leaks in the network, especially small leaks in
Laura Gallindo: the network. I think the innovations that enable water access to scale, some incremental innovation, but that still enable millions to get access like solarized pumps, things like that, the water ATM, they have been incremental from a technology standpoint, no breakthrough there.
It’s just the way they were framed targeting the, uh, you know, Africa and Asia. And I think that this really, for me, is at the core of innovation, right? Enabling water access.
Antoine Walter: In one word, what is the biggest challenge facing the water industry today? Consensus. That’s a good one.
Laura Gallindo: Fear.
Antoine Walter: Oh, that’s an interesting one.
I, I have to refrain myself to go on a sidetrack because if not, we’re going to be locked in the building. Who is a water innovator you admire and why? I’m not going to choose a person, but I’ll choose
Phil Tomlinson: a company. And it’s Grundfos. No, I’m not that cheesy, right? So it’s the joys of being British. Um, I’m actually going to say PUB because they don’t do, they don’t do innovation for the sake of it.
Yep. But they recognized a long time ago that without material and continuous innovation, they had societal collapse issues. And it’s got so embedded into the culture there. You know, we’ve seen this as an organization that trade and deal with them as well as someone who’s trying to do different things with them.
They engage on the public forum. They engage on the international ward forum, and it can be. Simple people process. And it can be actually, yeah, we like that technology, but we’re actually going to bring you into our ecosystem and we’re going to nurture you and we’re going to actually help you build and grow.
Cause that makes, it gives them more security about what they’re trying to do. I’m not really aware of anyone else that takes it to that level.
Laura Gallindo: I’ll give you a person because I’m a great admirer of him. He’s Mehul Patel. He’s, uh, Orange County Water District, right? And I think that he’s an example that, um, even in the midst of, uh, public opinion, strong public opinion against it, uh, in the political scenario of the bargaining of the funds.
in the challenges of the technology and, uh, the, the liability that brings with that. It’s solvable, you know, not only the drug people were used, but we are for DPR. And that’s the answer for much of the crisis, right?
Antoine Walter: It’s interesting because you’re, you’re still an example of innovators are. End users slash utilities, which is an interesting pattern.
What’s one single piece of advice you would give to emerging water entrepreneurs?
Phil Tomlinson: Understand what drives the market, because that will drive your timing and engagement. It also drives who you engage with, because it means things don’t happen that quickly and you need to plan for that. Unfortunately.
Laura Gallindo: Back to the one word I gave on the fear, I think fear can scare away.
Fear can bring scarcity. I think sometimes our sector is perceived by having too much fear to move quick or right to take risk or to bring new technology, but it’s really not as we just need to be conservative talking about safety. So I think for these entrepreneurs, just don’t scare away. Care now we thinking that there’s no world adopters.
There’s only fear, like just sit through and, uh, actually enable us to convert fear into something.
Antoine Walter: What’s the common misconception about water innovation that you’d like to debunk?
Phil Tomlinson: I’ve probably said it a couple times already. It doesn’t have to be. That is a conception that it has to be, you know, it has to be a kind of technology levels of innovation.
That’s, it can be something incredibly simple.
Laura Gallindo: I’ll go back to what access is my main theme today. I think that we need to understand that, yes, we try to bring global frameworks and everything, but just keeping in mind that The local, the communities, they know the best for them. And I think that kind of not trying to really push something in, but really being humble to enable and empower the communities with something simple.
But it’s about empowerment more than just new technology, new everything. So it’s about creating these The scale of SMEs, right, within the communities, uh, again, on the water access theme that I,
Antoine Walter: I’ve spoken a lot. What is one water taboo that you broke or that you believe we should break?
Phil Tomlinson: That we should break is the cycle for treating wastewater.
And that is a widely used water source. I subscribe to that one.
Laura Gallindo: Yeah, I think reused, uh, right? Uh, just from toilet to tap. This is, uh But not
Antoine Walter: that one though. That wording doesn’t exist. Yeah. We delete it. It’s, it’s out of history. It’s, uh It’s done. So we don’t need to bring it anymore.
Laura Gallindo: It doesn’t count.
Okay,
Antoine Walter: the point is good. We just don’t use the word toilet to tap. They don’t exist.
Laura Gallindo: Oh, what’s the answer?
Antoine Walter: Whatever, which is not that just not just not toilets I guess what you said before dpr direct put them over here Or second life water or new water like pubi does or what you want actually already pre loved water Whatever, you know, these these second hand websites are using but not toilet to tap.
That’s just yeah a disaster It’s it’s it’s It’s using fear at the really wrong place, but my two cents. Last question for you, what
Phil Tomlinson: can and should I do for you? Share the, we talked before around the continuing role for education. People like you in the role you have, have a completely different reach to those of us who sit in the specific application, so it’s the market, you have a voice.
That’s different to ours and it’s important to carry that educational piece.
Antoine Walter: That’s just because you’re not following the Xelem footprints. Just, just sponsor Manchester United as they have City and then you don’t need me.
Laura Gallindo: I was going to say provoke and here he comes with a provocation. I would say you are in a great chair to provoke but also to connect, right?
So, uh, you really see some dotted lines that we, in our day to day, are just not seeing and I think bringing people together with the same, right? Agenda, it’s some unique position you have to
Antoine Walter: well, thanks a lot for everything you shared today We will be kicked out of that house all together. So that’s cool We have a new thing in common if you want to connect with you Where shall I redirect them the best
Phil Tomlinson: linkedin is probably still the easiest
Antoine Walter: option generally So as always I looked at the description.
In the descriptions, you find the links to both of your LinkedIn’s. Thanks a lot for having been with me today and talk to you soon. Yes. Thank you.
Laura Gallindo: Very fun chat. Thank you.
