Market Trends

Veolia, the world’s largest water company, builds its artificial-intelligence strategy on Hubgrade, the digital platform that anchors its AI and machine-learning work. Veolia’s digital team applies large language models (LLMs) across a catalog of 10 digital products, pairing operator expertise with software instead of replacing the human in the plant.

Their ambition? To turn tens of thousands of cooling towers (and countless more assets) into data goldmines and push the envelope on how the world perceives water technology. Let’s explore it:

with 🎙️ Andrew Collier – Digital Solutions Executive at the Veolia Water Tech Zone

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Kando’s STREAMi is a conversational AI assistant that turns a utility’s raw wastewater-sensor data into plain answers for executives and pretreatment managers, flagging pollution sources and network health on request. Founded in 2012, the Israeli company behind it has raised US$30.0M across four disclosed rounds, most recently US$10.0M in 2024.

But STREAMi isn’t just another tech novelty—it’s a solution grounded in practical necessity and designed for real-world application. How? Let’s figure out:

with 🎙️ Ori Reshef – Chief Solutions Officer at Kando

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Kemira builds a renewable, bio-based chemistry business inside a water-treatment portfolio that already generates an estimated US$1.4 billion in annual water revenue, replacing fossil-based coagulants and flocculants with plant-derived alternatives. The Finnish supplier, founded in 1920 and listed on Nasdaq Helsinki, is creating customer demand that no regulation yet requires.

Intrigued? Let’s dive deeper into her vision.

with 🎙️ Riikka Timonen – VP New Markets & Biomaterials at Kemira

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Grundfos, the Danish pump manufacturer founded in 1945, is rebuilding itself into a water-technology group through acquisition, closing 17 water-sector deals since 2001. Its 2023 purchase of Metasphere for US$92 million added internet-of-things telemetry for utility networks, the digital core of a company that now sells water and climate solutions across municipal and industrial markets.

with 🎙️ Laura Gallindo – Global Director Strategic Marketing & Communications at Grundfos

with 🎙️ Phillip Tomlinson – Digital Solutions Leader at Grundfos

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SUDOC has raised US$16 million across two rounds to commercialize a bio-inspired tetra-amido macrocyclic ligand (TAML) catalyst that drops into existing oxidation systems and degrades pharmaceuticals, pesticides, and dyes in water. The founder-led startup, backed by Momentum Capital and PureTerra Ventures, doses the iron-based catalyst at parts-per-billion levels, so plants treat micropollutants without new hardware.

Imagine a product that makes water treatment more efficient, reduces harmful chemical use in everyday cleaning products, and cuts energy consumption by 90%: does it sound too good to be true? Well, this is what SUDOC is making happen. Wanna learn more? Let’s explore:

with 🎙️ Roger Berry – Co-Founder & CEO at SUDOC

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VAPAR uses deep learning over in-pipe CCTV footage to flag wastewater-network defects automatically, replacing the manual frame-by-frame review that pipe inspection has always demanded. The Australian company, founded in 2018, raised a US$3.3M Series A led by PureTerra Ventures in 2024 to scale that AI across utilities moving from reactive to proactive repair.

That’s the kind of trouble, VAPAR aims to fight, by leveraging the power of Machine Learning and sound commitment! How? Let’s find out:

with 🎙️ Amanda Siqueira – Co-Founder & CEO of VAPAR

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Hydraloop turned its Best of CES 2020 award into a funded category, raising an $11.4M Series B in 2024 led by Invest-NL after a $4.2M round in 2022. The Dutch maker, founded in 2015, builds compact greywater recyclers that cut household mains-water use by up to 45 percent.

with 🎙️ Sabine Stuiver – CMO & Co-Founder at Hydraloop

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When we think of world-changing entrepreneurs, names like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, or Bill Gates often come to mind. But there’s another one that deserves a spot on that list: Gary White. Along with his co-founder, the Hollywood superstar Matt Damon, Gary is transforming lives by addressing one of the most pressing global issues – access to clean water and sanitation.

Surprisingly, the engine driving this transformation is not an international governmental organization but a remarkably effective charity. Let’s explore the inspiring story of how Gary White’s innovative approach is reshaping the water crisis landscape:

with 🎙️ Gary White – Co-Founder & CEO of Water.org & Water Equity

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Adionics raised a 27 million dollar Series B led by lithium producer SQM in 2023, taking a bold stand in direct lithium extraction (DLE). The French company, founded in 2009, has now drawn 31.6 million dollars across two rounds to industrialize its closed-loop solvent process and compete against the crowded field of DLE developers.

Wanna learn more? Let’s dive into it:

with 🎙️ Gabriel Toffani – CEO at Adionics

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Aquaporin raised $24.77 million in a 2024 rights issue to reach break-even within two to three years, funding the scale-up of its biomimetic membranes. The Danish company embeds the aquaporin protein as an additive that powers both forward osmosis and reverse osmosis modules, selling point-of-use purifiers, brackish-water elements, and industrial systems.

Wanna find more about one of the water sector’s Rockstars? Let’s explore Aquaporin’s path:

with 🎙️ Matt Boczkowski – CEO at Aquaporin

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Desalination has always been synonymous with high energy consumption and significant operational costs, but what if there was a way to make it more efficient and sustainable? Enter Ionic Solutions, a company that aims to revolutionize the desalination industry with its cutting-edge technology.

Let’s explore it:

with 🎙️ Jordan Grose – Vice-President of Commercialization at Ionic Solutions

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Water stewardship is a buzzword that’s often thrown around in corporate boardrooms and environmental conferences, but what does it truly mean? And more importantly, how do we ensure that companies’ commitments to water sustainability are not just empty promises? Let’s dive into the nitty-gritty of water stewardship, the necessity of standards, and how to measure real impact:

with 🎙️ Lauren Enright – Program Manager Water Services @ SCS Global Services

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120Water runs a cloud-based water-compliance platform and has raised US$57.5M across four rounds since 2019, capped by a US$43M 2024 round led by Edison Partners. The U.S. company started in 2016 as a consumer lead-testing kit, and now sells software, sampling logistics, and managed services to utilities running lead and PFAS compliance programs.

This incredible journey is a testament to strategic pivots, innovative solutions, and a relentless focus on customer needs, let’s explore it:

with 🎙️ Megan Glover, CEO & Co-Founder at 120Water

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Salinity Solutions recovers up to 98% of feed water at half the energy of conventional multi-stage reverse osmosis (RO), running the membranes as a semi-batch cycle on streams from near-zero to 50,000 mg/L salinity. The UK startup raised a $2.4M Series A in 2024, led by SQM Lithium Ventures, to commercialize its HyBatch system.

with 🎙️ Tim Naughton – CTO and Founder of Salinity Solutions

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Oxyle raised a US$16.0M Series A in 2025 to scale reactors that chemically destroy PFAS down to parts-per-trillion levels, the kind of PFAS destruction that breaks forever chemicals apart instead of trapping them in filters that just shift the waste elsewhere. The Swiss company, founded in 2020, has pulled in US$19.0M total to commercialize catalytic destruction for industrial and municipal water.

Let’s explore it:

with 🎙️ Fajer Mushtaq – CEO & Co-Founder at Oxyle

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Swirltex treats difficult industrial wastewater with a buoyancy-enhanced ultrafiltration membrane that injects air to spin contaminants off the membrane wall, recovering 80 to 95 percent of the water while cutting energy 40 to 60 percent versus conventional separation. The Edmonton company has raised US$2.2M across two rounds, led by Sustainable Development Technology Canada.

with 🎙️ Peter Christou – President & Founder at Swirltex

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SimpleLab abandoned arsenic removal and rebuilt itself around Tap Score, a mail-order water testing service that ships kits to homes, routes the samples to accredited laboratories, and returns plain-language reports. The pivot chased residential demand that labs ignored, on the strength of a 2020 seed round led by Craft Ventures as the model scaled across the United States.

with 🎙️ Johnny Pujol – CEO & Co-Founder of SimpleLab & TapScore

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Aqua Membranes prints a patented three-dimensional polymer spacer directly onto reverse osmosis (RO) membrane sheets, replacing conventional mesh feed spacers to fit 505 square feet of membrane into an 8-inch element versus roughly 440. The U.S. company has raised US$7.0M across its three disclosed rounds, with later Series B capital led by Burnt Island Ventures and Osmoflo.

Let’s explore it:

with 🎙️ Craig Beckman – CEO at Aqua Membranes

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Aclarity destroys PFAS in water with an electrochemical oxidation reactor that breaks the carbon-fluorine bond, taking landfill leachate from parts-per-billion contamination to non-detect in a single pass. The Massachusetts company, founded in 2017, raised US$20.2M across three rounds, capped by a US$15.9M Series A in 2023.

No wonder I wanted to get my insights straight from her, hence let’s explore PFAS destruction:

with 🎙️ Julie Bliss Mullen – CEO & Founder at Aclarity

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Gradiant grew from a 2013 MIT spinout into water tech’s only unicorn by raising US$225M in 2023 Series D financing, the capstone of US$329.8M in confirmed venture rounds, and acquiring 8 industrial-water companies to enter markets it could not reach organically. Schlumberger New Energy and Warburg Pincus led its earlier Series C.

Since I wrote this, Gradiant doubled to a $2 billion valuation and started talking IPO out loud, so I followed the question all the way to Madrid in 600 private water bets, zero public exits, and will Gradiant finally IPO?

with 🎙️ Prakash Govindan – Co-Founder and COO of Gradiant

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Venture capital (VC) has been the lifeblood of innovation across many sectors, propelling startups from garage projects to global giants. Yet, in the nuanced and critical sector of water and water technology, VC’s role is both celebrated and scrutinized. We’ve often covered here the VC’s point of view, let’s look at the other side of the coin today:

with 🎙️ Brian Iversen – Founder & Managing Partner @ Cimbria Capital

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In today’s rapidly changing environment, water resilience has emerged as a critical aspect of sustainable development and disaster preparedness. The frequency of natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, and droughts underscores the importance of ensuring that water utilities can withstand and quickly recover from such events. This imperative is not just about managing a precious resource but also about safeguarding public health, supporting economies, and protecting ecosystems.

Against this backdrop, Mekorot, Israel’s national water company, stands out as a beacon of innovation and resilience. With a comprehensive approach to water resource management, Mekorot ensures the continuous supply of safe, high-quality water, even in the face of adversity.

The company’s efforts align with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG6, which aims for the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all, and SDG11, which focuses on making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable.

Mekorot’s success story is not just about its technological prowess but also about its commitment to resilience, sustainability, and global cooperation, let’s explore it:

with 🎙️ Yossi Yaacoby – Vice-President of Engineering at Mekorot

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In “Water For All” David Sedlak offers a compelling exploration of the multifaceted water crises facing our world today. At a time when pessimism could easily take hold, Sedlak encourages a different view—one of optimism and innovative problem-solving.

Through a detailed examination of past and present water crises, he provides a roadmap for overcoming the challenges posed by water scarcity, pollution, and climate change. As I wanted to dive deeper into Sedlak’s insights, focusing on how small-scale solutions could be the key to securing water for all in a rapidly changing world, I sat down with him on the mic. Here’s the result:

with 🎙️ David Sedlak – Professor at UC Berkeley & Author of Water 4.0 and Water for All

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In the wake of MrBeast’s impactful 100 Wells initiative, the spotlight has turned towards the critical issue of water development in rural areas, especially within the challenging landscapes of sub-Saharan Africa. While such high-profile projects ignite conversations and inspire action, understanding the complexities of providing clean, sustainable water supplies demands a deeper dive.

Enter experts like Sean Furey and Kerstin Danert, whose experiences and insights offer invaluable lessons in navigating the multifaceted challenges of rural water supply. let’s explore the essential do’s and don’ts in the realm of water development, paving the way for more effective and lasting solutions.

with 🎙️ Kerstin Danert – Founder & Director @ Ask for Water

with 🎙️ Sean Furey – Director @ Rural Water Supply Network

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Burnt Island Ventures is a water-only venture capital fund that has backed 34 water-tech companies across 48 funding rounds since 2019, managing about $50 million. Founder Tom Ferguson invests exclusively in water, betting that good companies with growing revenue and healthy margins earn an exit no matter which sector they are built in.

All that early-stage money has to exit somewhere eventually, and right now it mostly does not, so I followed the whole capital chain to its missing last step in 600 private water bets, zero public exits.

In 2022, Tom Ferguson closed Burnt Island Venture’s first fund, with the thesis to find, fund and support the best water entrepreneurs. Did he succeed in these endeavors? Why? What’s the secret sauce? What can you replicate in your investing or entrepreneurship path?

Let’s explore:

with 🎙️ Tom Ferguson – Founder & Managing Partner @ Burnt Island Ventures

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Let me write that sentence I hate: water is essential for life. But beyond hydration, what if it also played a crucial role in enhancing public health? That’s the promise of micro-dosed lithium. This trace mineral, we usually associate with mining for the battery supply chain, is now being spotlighted for its potential health benefits when present in tap water.

Research suggests that areas with naturally higher levels of lithium in water might see notable reductions in suicide rates, violent crime, and even Alzheimer’s disease. In other words, it could turn a simple, everyday act of drinking water into a key to not just physical, but also mental well-being.

Let’s explore the evidence and implications of adding micro-dosed lithium to tap water and how it could represent a groundbreaking approach to public health.

with 🎙️ Sudhir Gadh – CEO & Founder @ Third Element Water

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True Elements runs a water intelligence platform that aggregates data from about 30 US federal agencies and 1.5 million live US sensors, then applies proprietary artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to score and forecast water quality and risk. It resolves any US watershed to the HUC-12 level, turning fragmented public datasets into decisions for utilities, ESG investors, and public agencies.

At the forefront of this technological revolution is True Elements, a company that’s introducing the concept of “water intelligence” by leveraging the power of AI. So today, let’s dive into how AI and machine learning are not just modernizing but revolutionizing water management strategies, providing deeper insights and smarter solutions for a sustainable future. As Kimberly Nelson tells in today’s release of the podcast (you’ll find just here ⬇️): “We are just at the beginning of people starting to appreciate and understand the importance of this kind of information and intelligence.”

Let’s dive deeper…

with 🎙️ Kimberly Nelson – COO @ True Elements

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Epic Cleantec has raised US$24.0M across three venture rounds to put onsite water reuse into high-density buildings, converting a building’s own greywater and blackwater into recycled water for toilet flushing, cooling towers, and irrigation. The economics drive adoption: developers cut water and sewer fees, and a 2024 Series B of US$12.0M funds the rollout.

So why is this shift happening now? As industries, municipalities, and agricultural enterprises grapple with the financial burden of water acquisition and the risks of unpredictable supply, water reuse stands out as a beacon of efficiency and reliability. The economic incentives of the water reuse revolution are becoming too potent to ignore, promising not only cost savings but also a competitive edge.

After the social dynamics of water reuse earlier this (special) week, today we dive into the economics of water reuse, uncovering the incentives that are driving its adoption at an accelerating pace. We’ll explore how this revolution is not just sustaining the environment but also swelling the wallets of those who have the foresight to invest in it.

with 🎙️ Aaron Tartakovsky – CEO & Co-Founder @ Epic Cleantec

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Xylem already runs 15 of its 43 product lines at Technology Readiness Level 9 (TRL 9), the fully commercial stage, with disinfection, filtration, and aeration trains deployed for water reuse. Wider adoption now hinges on public acceptance and political will, because the toilet-to-tap stigma still slows communities the technology is already built to serve.

Today, we’re looking at water reuse, not from a technological standpoint, but through the lens of societal, policy, and human behavior factors that play a pivotal role in its implementation and acceptance.

with 🎙️ Austin Alexander – Vice President, Sustainability and Social Impact at Xylem

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Veolia employs 48,842 people worldwide running drinking-water, wastewater, and environmental operations, the largely invisible workforce behind a business generating roughly US$18.7B in annual water revenue. Water utility roles offer stable, purpose-driven, decades-long careers, yet the sector struggles to attract talent even as a wave of retirements approaches at a company operating since 1853.

(Wanna get direct water job insights from a specialized head hunter? Then listen to this episode’s twin here)

with 🎙️ Kendra Morris – President Northeast Region at Veolia North America

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Happy New Year! With the start of a new year, it’s the perfect time to look at new job opportunities, especially in the water industry. This field is about to see a big change. Many experienced people are retiring, leaving room for new talent to step in. This change, often called the ‘silver tsunami,’ is a big deal for the water sector. But it’s not just about people leaving; it’s also about new chances for innovation and technology.

This is where you come in. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to shift gears in your career, the water industry offers exciting and important job opportunities. Let’s talk about all the changes happening in the water world and what they mean for jobs. From understanding the impact of retiring experts to the growing role of technology, we’ll (hopefully!) cover it all. If you’re curious about where a career in water can take you, read on!

(Wanna get direct water job insights while reading? Then listen to the dedicated podcast episode ⬇️)

with 🎙️ Lyle King – Owner & Director at Influx Search

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Let’s explore five paths a water professional can follow to reduce the water sector’s carbon impacts.

This year alone, I’ve traveled to six continents, I’ve taken 56 planes, and I’ve emitted nearly 12 tons of CO2 equivalent from that alone.

As I started having a hard time looking my kids in the eye and telling them I was doing all of that for good, I decided to compensate for my carbon emissions by planting trees! 

We’ve had that dead tree in the garden for two years now, so I could totally uproot and replace it with a couple of new ones and balance out my travels, right? 

So I looked up what gargantuan amount of CO2 a tree could absorb in a year to figure out how much I should plant in my garden, and… I have a problem.

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I dived into 23 years of M&A records in the Water Industry (and sat down with a bunch of first-hand experts 😉): 3 major trends stand out:

1️⃣ The most active players are American utility consolidators. Within the top 10 M&A fanatics, 6 respond to this description, and a 7th is also consolidating utilities (although not in the US).

2️⃣ There’s a new wave of “Water Tech Aggregators” that’s rising under the lead of SKion Water, Nijhuis Saur Industries and Evoqua Water Technologies.

3️⃣ 12 companies are playing the “Wayne Huizenga” game – super actively consolidating a very specific section of the water food chain.

with 🎙️ Tom Rooney – Chairman at Sciens Water

with 🎙️ Alex Buehler – CEO at Integrated Water Services

with 🎙️ Damian Georgino – Partner at Womble Bond Dickinson

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Ginkgo Bioworks programs the DNA of living cells the way software engineers write code, running designs through an automated foundry that screens vast libraries of genetic constructs to find the ones that work. Founded in 2008 and publicly listed on the NYSE under ticker DNA, the Boston company is pushing synthetic biology into water through biosensors that detect contaminants like selenium and PFAS.

with 🎙️ Kimberly Kupiecki – Senior Director at Gingko Bioworks

💧 Ginkgo Bioworks is the software company for biology, coding DNA to create custom cells that solve real-world problems.

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We’re diving deep into a topic that’s been swept under the rug for far too long: the media’s coverage of water issues – or lack thereof. Are journalists dropping the ball, or is the water sector failing to make its case?

with 🎙️ J. Carl Ganter – Managing Director at Circle of Blue

💧 Circle of Blue is an award-winning team of leading journalists, scientists, data experts, communications designers, and facilitators that reports challenges and solutions to global resource issues with emphasis on the fierce and growing competition between Water, food, and energy in a changing climate.

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Matter builds the Gulp washing-machine filter that traps the plastic microfibres synthetic clothes shed into household wastewater, a major route by which microplastics reach the ocean. The United Kingdom company raised a $10M Series A in 2023 led by S2G Ventures, then took growth funding led by Inter IKEA Group in 2025 to put filters inside new appliances and textile mills.

with 🎙️ Adam Root – CEO & Founder at Matter

💧 Matter is an innovation company pioneering technology solutions for capturing, harvesting, and recycling microplastics

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Kemira runs about US$1.4 billion in annual water-related revenue and is now steering that base toward bio-based treatment chemistry, replacing fossil-derived polymers and coagulants with biomass-balanced versions. The Nasdaq Helsinki-listed Finnish supplier, founded in 1920, anchors the shift in phosphorus recovery and AI-led chemical dosing.

with 🎙️ Tuija Pohjolainen-Hiltunen – President Industry and Water Segment at Kemira

💧 Kemira markets safe and sustainable chemistries that are part of a good life, ensuring hygiene, safe water, food safety, and more.

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Evoqua Water Technologies grew by acquisition, buying 23 companies for a disclosed US$822.1M between 2016 and 2022, anchored by the US$283.7M Neptune Benson deal alongside smaller technology tuck-ins. That open-innovation playbook of scouting and buying outside capability ended in a US$7.5 billion exit to Xylem in 2023.

with 🎙️ Ann Perreault – Vice President for Strategic Marketing & Growth at Evoqua Water Technologies

with 🎙️ Joshua Griffis – Director of Technology & Innovation at Evoqua Water Technologies

💧 Evoqua is a global leader in helping municipalities and industrial customers protect and improve the world’s most fundamental natural resource: water

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Xylem Innovation Labs partners with early-stage water-tech startups and takes no equity, scouting founders the way a sports club scouts talent and helping them scale through reseller, licensing, and white-label deals. The arm sits inside Xylem, an 8.5 billion dollar water company that has acquired 22 businesses since 2012, so partnering rather than buying marks a deliberate second lane.

with 🎙️ Max Storto – Lead Innovation Analyst at Xylem Innovation Labs

💧 Xylem is one of the largest water and wastewater technology company globally and follows the simple motto: “Let’s solve water”

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Is AI a force for good or a double-edged sword? In this comprehensive look, we’ll discuss everything from the ethics of AI to its transformative role in sustainability. Are you ready to understand the complexities of an “AI Sustainable Future?” Let’s dive right in:

with 🎙️ Alice Schmidt, MBA lecturer, Adviser to the European Commission, and non-profit organizations like Extinction Rebellion, Protect our Winters, and Chair of the Board of Endeva e.V.

with 🎙️ Claudia Winkler, CEO, and co-founder of Goood Mobile, Europe’s first B-Corp Certified telecom provider, and a Founding Partner of Adjacent Possible Network.

💧 Alice and Claudia had been with us for their first book “the Sustainability Puzzle,” and are back for an in-depth exploration of the AI world and its potential impact on Societal Progress and a Sustainable Future. Which is the topic of their second book: Fast Forward, written with Florian Schütz and Jeroen Dobbelaere.

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Mangrove Lithium pivoted from desalination to lithium refining and raised US$85M in 2026, led by the Canada Growth Fund, to build North America commercial-scale battery-grade lithium capacity. Founded in 2017 in Vancouver and spun out of the University of British Columbia, the company is backed by Breakthrough Energy Ventures and BMW i Ventures.

with 🎙️ Saad Dara – CEO and Founder of Mangrove Lithium

💧 Mangrove Lithium produces battery-grade lithium hydroxide or carbonate from a wide array of raw sources

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Veolia Water Technologies and Solutions runs water-tech innovation across an estimated US$3.4 billion water business built through 10 acquisitions since 2006, from AnoxKaldnes to Sentinel Monitoring. Its membrane and digital-twin R&D traces back to Zenon, and parent Veolia Environnement consolidated full ownership in 2025 by buying the final 30% stake for US$1.75 billion.

with 🎙️ Glenn Vicevic – CTO at Veolia Water Technologies & Solutions

💧 Veolia WTS provides Industry-leading water technology and process expertise to solve the toughest water, wastewater, and process challenges

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Georg Fischer, the Swiss flow-solutions group founded in 1802, stays innovative by acquiring and backing younger companies, completing 11 acquisitions and startup stakes across its history including a minority position in the Oxford Flow startup. The SIX Swiss Exchange listed firm runs piping, casting, and machining divisions and treats startup collaboration as core strategy.

(Also check my entire Lithium deep dive!)

with 🎙️ Andreas Müller – CEO at GF

💧 GF is a sustainability and innovation leader aiming to provide superior customer value across three Divisions enabling the safe transport of liquids and gases, lightweight casting components, and high-precision manufacturing technologies.

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Ready for an epic journey? Strap in as we rock’n roll from deep-down brine to powering our future through lithium! We’re plunging into the buzz around Direct Lithium Extraction and companies like Standard Lithium who are making magic happen. Water and lithium – it’s a wild ride, let’s follow our guide this week:

(Find out more with my entire Lithium deep dive.)

with 🎙️ Andy Robinson – President and COO of Standard Lithium

💧 Standard Lithium coins itself America’s 21st century Lithium Company. They’re expected to become the first lithium developer in the World to produce direct-extracted lithium at a commercial scale in El Dorado

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Humans are the third pillar of sustainability, and for too long, they’ve been left out of the equation of sustainable lithium production. So it’s about time to integrate all shareholders and first nations in particular in the lithium revolution discussion. How? Let’s explore:

(Also check my entire Lithium deep dive!)

with 🎙️ Christopher Brown – CEO at Helios Corporation

💧 Helios acknowledges that the World’s current trajectory is unsustainable and focuses its expertise in Energy, Power, Biomass, Capital Markets, and the latest environmental technology to achieve more, using less.

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Aquatech International is a family-owned industrial water company founded in 1981 that grows by buying capabilities rather than building them, completing 6 acquisitions across desalination, brine recovery, and direct lithium extraction. Chemical major Ecolab held a 33% minority stake from 2016 until the founding Sharma family bought it back to stay private.

(Also check my entire Lithium deep dive!)

with 🎙️ Devesh Sharma – CEO at Aquatech

💧 Aquatech helps the world’s most recognized companies solve important water challenges such as lithium refining, desalination or food and beverage.

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Evove precision-engineers graphene-oxide coated membranes and 3D-printed spacer plates that cut pressure drop 10 to 20 percent and erase the dead zones where foulants collect, while lifting membrane flux 20 to 50 percent. The deployment-grade coatings reject over 98 percent of salt in reverse osmosis, and the UK firm raised a US$6.9M Series A in 2023 to scale lithium-brine separation.

(Also check my entire Lithium deep dive!)

with 🎙️ Chris Wyres – CEO at Evove

💧 Evove aims to take membranes to the next level, overcoming the inherent flaws in conventional architectures, hence transforming membranes, transforming separation, and filtration.

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Battery-grade lithium can have a significant carbon impact through its production, refining, and transport stages. Yet, an Australian company with a European project may well have found the solution with its Zero Carbon Lithium: Vulcan Energy Resources. And its product is flying off the shelves… years ahead of its actual production. How’s that possible? Let’s explore:

(Also check my entire Lithium deep dive!)

with 🎙️ Cris Moreno – Deputy CEO at Vulcan Energy Resources

💧 Vulcan aims to decarbonize the transition to electric mobility through its world-first Zero Carbon Lithium Projects for electric vehicle batteries and its renewable energy business.

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Have you ever heard of the Lithium King? That’s the title Shale Magazine gave to EnergyX’s founder and CEO, Teague Egan. So what got him that recognition? It could be the company’s patents along the entire battery supply chain, their differentiated direct lithium extraction technology, or the company’s claim that they offer the best complement to existing evaporation pond. Let’s find out!

(Also check my entire Lithium deep dive!)

with 🎙️ Teague Egan – CEO & Founder of EnergyX 

💧 EnergyX is on a mission to become a worldwide leader in the global transition to sustainable energy

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Veolia Water Technologies refines battery-grade lithium by running its zero-liquid-discharge evaporation and crystallization expertise in reverse, recovering and purifying the metal instead of treating wastewater. The same unit engineered the Naraha spodumene-to-hydroxide refinery in Japan, and sits inside a water business turning over an estimated US$3.4B a year.

Find out more with my entire Lithium deep dive.

with 🎙️ Jim Rieke – VP of Process Engineering at Veolia Water Technologies

💧 Veolia Water Technologies specializes in water treatment solutions while providing a complete range of services for industrial & public authorities

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😮 Anaergia’s flagship asset, the Rialto Bioenergy Facility, just filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. What happened? What are the problems? What’s next? Let’s review ⬇

with 🎙️ Antoine Walter, Podcaster in Chief at GF Piping Systems

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Standard Lithium shall become the first company ever to run a Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE) process at a commercial scale by the mid-decade in El Dorado, Arkansas. How did they manage to fast-track this project? Let’s dive into their DLE secrets.

Find out more with my entire Lithium deep dive.

with 🎙️ Robert Mintak – CEO of Standard Lithium

💧 Standard Lithium coins itself America’s 21st century Lithium Company. They’re expected to become the first lithium developer in the World to produce direct-extracted lithium at a commercial scale in El Dorado

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When you visit a foreign country, it’s often a smart move to start by getting the basics of language and culture. That’s our agenda for today: let us break down the fundamentals of lithium processes!

Find out more with my entire Lithium deep dive.

with 🎙️ Tony Strobbe – EV supply chain Projects Director

💧 Every Monday, Tony compiles a dedicated content piece he shares on LinkedIn that covers one aspect of that said supply chain

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Lithium Mining shall get from 500’000 tons per year to at least 2 if not 3 or 5 million tons by 2030. How will we get there? We’ll need a lot of planets to align… and heavy support from the Water Industry!

Find out more with my entire Lithium deep dive.

with 🎙️ Benjamin Sparrow – CEO and Co-Founder at Saltworks Technologies

💧 Saltworks provides innovative products and solutions for industrial wastewater treatment and desalination.

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Water Companies can face a wide array of events: creation, expansion, profit, losses, and sometimes even death. Yet one specific change is maybe the most transformative: getting sold and transferred to a new owner. If that’s well documented for large water groups, it’s a much different story for smaller water companies: let’s explore it!

with 🎙️ Karl Michael Millauer, Founder of KMM Consulting and a former C-Level executive in some emblematic water groups like BWT, Christ Water Technology, Aquatech International, and Aquarion AG.

💧 KMM Consulting helps clients around the globe leverage opportunities in the world of water through mergers & acquisitions, finance & funding, business development, and strategic support.

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The top 10 risks ranked in the World Economic Forum’s Global Risk Report all relate to Water. If that’s not a sign that it is time to get your Water Risk Assessments right, I don’t know what is! Not convinced yet? Let’s dig further:

with 🎙️ Jennifer Möller-Gulland, Water Risk Expert and Water Economist for the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme

💧 Jennifer is the founder of the Water Risk Assessment Blueprint Training, a 12-week online course that helps water professionals to know the Water Risks, convince decision makers to consider and address them, be part of the solution, and accelerate their career.

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Zwitterions are weird beasts with two fascinating perks: being simultaneously positively and negatively charged turns them highly hydrophilic and very resistant to non-specific adhesion. Wouldn’t that make them the best special sauce to pump up a membrane filtration system? Let’s find out!

with 🎙️ Alex Rappaport, CEO and Co-Founder of ZwitterCo. 

💧 ZwitterCo leverages the benefits of Zwitterions to build Membranes that treat the world’s toughest wastewater. 

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When marketing focuses on “Promotion” only, it limits itself to 8% of its possible spectrum. And it has consequences! Product-market Fit, go-to-market strategies, or strategic directions for the company might suffer from that tropism on the last link in the tactics chain. Who is to blame? Most of the time, top management.

with 🎙️ Björn Otto, Founder, and Managing Director of Interius Solutions. 

💧 Interius Solutions supports Water Technology Companies with outsourced marketing solutions and a very special touch – it’s marketing done by water professionals that understand water technologies. 

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with 🎙️ Paul Gagliardo, Judge and advisor at Imagine H2O, and Principal at Gagliacqua.     

💧 Paul also runs the Water Entrepreneur, an incredibly good water podcast that is one of my personal favorites and which also turns out to be a family business as Paul will elaborate on later on in the conversation.

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Everybody predicted Water Wars would eventually happen one day, and for many places in the World, we’re far past the days where these conflicts would just be a concept. Yet, the scenes that we experienced in France over the past few days came as a surprise, in a water-rich first World country. What does it reveal?

with 🎙️ Antoine Walter, Podcaster in Chief at GF Piping Systems

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with 🎙️ Ben Kimura Gross, CEO of Systemics Academy, Negotiation Trainer, and Mentor.     

💧 At Negotiation with Goliath, Ben trains sustainability professionals and entrepreneurs to get decision-makers on their side and make your goals their goals.

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Aclarus, a Canadian ozone-treatment manufacturer founded in 2011, wins a mature, consolidating niche by staying small and agile, serving the underserved rural and industrial sites the big ozone players overlook. That focus carried it to about US$1.3M in revenue and a 2020 acquisition by 1440 Capital.

with 🎙️ Michael Doran, President & Co-Founder of Aclarus Ozone.    

💧 Aclarus Ozone aims to solve complex water problems with advanced ozone technology.

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Lifecycle Assessment (LCA) provides a systematic framework to identify and assess environmental impacts associated with a product or service, including energy use, greenhouse gas emissions, waste generation, and as probably most interesting for us, water use.

Hence, LCA is a powerful decision-making tool that helps identify opportunities to reduce environmental impacts, improve efficiency, and promote circularity. Let’s explore it:

with 🎙️ Dubravka Skunca, LCA Representative and Expert for the European Commission, but also an SME Support leader at the European Regional Development Fund, Business Consultant, and Council Representative at various EIT groups.    

💧 Dubravka is also LCA Leader for Green Protein, a European project which aims at a major innovation in the fields of protein production and food loss reduction in the EU by producing high-added value, food-grade functional proteins, and other ingredients out of green field waste.

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Many decisions we make may look good on a small scale, yet as soon as we zoom out, we realize that they were the wrong choice in the end. That’s all fine when it’s about eating the last chocolate chunk in the box, but it’s an entirely different story when it comes to Water, its use, and its management worldwide! Why do we have so many wrong incentives? Let’s explore:

with 🎙️ Gonzalo Delacámara, Consultant on Natural Resources Economics for the United Nations and Water Policy Advisor for the OECD, the European Commission, and the World Bank   

💧 Gonzalo is also Director of the Center for Water & Climate Adaptation at IE University, aiming to reinvent education and train the people who will change the World tomorrow.

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Membrion builds ceramic ion-exchange membranes that recover up to 98% of water from harsh industrial wastewater streams which corrode conventional polymer membranes. The Seattle company has raised 22.9 million dollars across Seed, Series A, and two Series B rounds, including a 7.0 million dollar Series B led by PureTerra Ventures in January 2023.

with 🎙️ Greg Newbloom, CEO and Founder of Membrion.   

💧 Membrion strives to help industrial water users who aren’t satisfied with processes that are thousands of years old, and who’ve been searching for a better and lower-cost way to recycle or reuse their wastewater.

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When we discuss the water crisis in America, we often focus on a certain section of the Water Cycle: residential water. Yet, that’s only a fraction of the challenge and probably not the one where water is valued the most. Indeed, could you imagine industrial production without water? That’s why it’s a risk, and the reaction to have once you acknowledge it is something we covered:

with 🎙️ Damian Georgino, Partner at Womble Bond Dickinson

💧 Womble Bond Dickinson is a leading law firm that provides support to organizations operating within the fast-moving, challenging, and dynamic energy, water, and food nexus.

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There are a lot of parameters to consider when planning infrastructure for today and the decades to come. It is a compound of existing assets, communities, social issues, vulnerabilities but also water and climate data. This is why democratizing access to all those datasets is so crucial to solving the water crisis in America! And we’ll get to understand how and why:

with 🎙️ Sarah Kapnick, Chief Scientist at the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration

💧 The National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) aims to enrich life through science. From the sun’s surface to the ocean’s depths, the Agency works to keep the public informed of the changing environment around them.

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Sciens Water is a New York private equity firm managing US$1.0 billion in assets that it directs into America’s fragmented water sector, taking control positions in utilities and decentralized treatment since 2015 rather than chasing early-stage startups. Principal Henry Cordes argues private capital belongs in water because patient, control-oriented owners can consolidate the small systems that larger infrastructure funds ignore.

with 🎙️ Henry Cordes, Principal at Sciens Water

💧 Sciens is a research-driven investment fund that identifies uncovered, under-researched, or misunderstood water sector opportunities that are undercapitalized.

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How does an investor decide to fund a water technology or a water company? Are they sitting in a Shark Tank environment and following their instinct to make a decision in minutes? That’s very unlikely, right? Yet, you won’t know before you actually ask about the research and due diligence process. That’s what we explore this week:

with 🎙️ Meshal Alduraywish, Vice President at Sciens Capital Management

💧 Sciens is a research-driven investment fund that identifies uncovered, under-researched, or misunderstood water sector opportunities that are undercapitalized.

This episode is part of my Series on the Water Crisis in America

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There’s a treasure in the sewer, and we barely notice: wastewater and its pee and poo are an incredible source of water, energy, and a bunch of additional resources. Better: it could solve the World’s water needs and help balance the Zero Carbon energy equation. How? Let’s explore:

with 🎙️ Antoine Walter – Podcaster in Chief at (don’t) Waste Water

💧 (don’t) Waste Water is the Water Industry’s reference podcast pursuing this simple mission: Understand Water, Solve the World!

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At the exact point in time where governments are heavily investing in renewing their central water infrastructure, distributed water treatments still grow at a 3x faster pace! Does this mean we will soon all have a Water Filter ordered from Amazon and screwed under our sinks? Let’s explore:

with 🎙️ Upmanu Lall – Director of the Columbia Water Center

💧 The Columbia Water Center aims to creatively tackle water challenges of a rapidly changing world where water and climate interact with food, energy, ecosystems, and urbanization.

This episode is part of my Series on the Water Crisis in America

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If Climate Change was a shark, water would be its teeth – once we’ve said that, what happens? Not much. Still, 70% of Climate Change’s consequences will be felt through water. Isn’t it time to better prepare for Climate Change Adaptation? Let’s explore:

with 🎙️ Lauren Enright – Founder of Axiom Climate LLC

with 🎙️ Michael Stanley Gallisdorfer – Water Sustainability Strategist

💧 Lauren, Michael, and Indrani Pal will lead a Session Day at the upcoming American Geophysical Union Meeting in Chicago: “Adapting to Climate Change: Innovative Solutions for Building Water Resilience to Long-term Meteorological & Hydrological Change.”

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Central States Water Resources acquires small, distressed rural water and wastewater systems across the United States, brings them into regulatory compliance, and operates them as one regulated utility. The consolidator, owned by private-equity firm Sciens Capital since 2018, makes deals as small as the US$350,000 it paid for an Arkansas treatment plant in 2019, trading deal size for volume.

I got to meet with US’s largest consolidator – in less than a decade; they changed the fate of 800 distressed communities across ten states. Why, how, and for which results? What comes next? Let’s explore:

with 🎙️ Josiah Cox, founder and president of Central States Water Resources

💧 Central States Water Resources transforms how water utilities work by acquiring small, often non-compliant systems and then using expertise, technology, and innovation to quickly assess and turn them into reliable infrastructure.

This episode is part of my Series on the Water Crisis in America

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Philanthropic Capital could be the third source of investment the Water Sector desperately needed to find a balance. How will the blend of philanthropy into private funding and federal grants change the name of the game? Let’s explore:

with 🎙️ Sean Davis, founder and managing director of Merton Capital Partners, adjunct professor at the Palm Beach Atlantic University, and Author of “Solving the Giving Pledge Bottleneck.”

💧 Merton Capital Partners develops innovative investment strategies to unlock philanthropy’s potential by incentivizing corporations to generate large-scale good in their core businesses.

This episode is part of my Series on the Water Crisis in America

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The Water Challenge is three-dimensional. We face broken pipes, broken policies, and broken economics! Yet, if we get to the bottom of it, the economic one seems to be the root cause of all the other problems. What if Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs actually explained it? That’s what we’ll uncover:

with 🎙️ Tom Rooney – Chairman and Operating Partner at Sciens Water

💧 Sciens is a research-driven investment fund that identifies uncovered, under-researched, or misunderstood water sector opportunities that are undercapitalized.

This episode is part of my Series on the Water Crisis in America

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De Nora built a water business from near-zero to a 2022 Euronext Milan IPO in seven years by buying capability, anchored by its 2015 Severn Trent water-purification acquisition for US$81.2M. Seven acquisitions later, energy group Snam paid US$475M for a 33% stake the year before the listing.

De Nora is still one of the very few water names that actually rang the bell, which is exactly why I came back to the water-IPO drought in 600 private water bets, zero public exits.

with 🎙️ Mirka Wilderer – CEO at De Nora Water Technologies

💧 De Nora is a leading provider of equipment, systems, disinfection, and filtration solutions for water and wastewater treatment.

This episode is part of my Series on the Water Crisis in America

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Puraffinity has raised US$26.1M to scale a bio-based adsorbent that captures PFAS for reuse instead of destroying the forever chemicals. The British company, founded in 2015 and backed by Kindred Capital, Octopus Ventures, and BGF, runs its Puratech G400 media at deployment scale, replacing far larger volumes of conventional activated carbon in PFAS treatment.

💧 Puraffinity is a GreenTech Company that designs smart materials for environmental applications.​ Their cutting-edge material design and creative engineering approach may provide a new horizon to solve the daunting PFAS / Forever chemicals challenge we face.

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Xylem grew from a pump and instrumentation supplier into a full water solutions provider through 22 acquisitions worth US$10.4B in disclosed value since 2012. Patrick Decker, who ran the New York-listed company as chief executive, anchored that Let us solve water strategy with the US$7.5B Evoqua deal in 2023.

Patrick was kind enough to spend some time with me to review some of the hot topics in our sector, yet he was awaited on stage for a speech, so we had to be fast. Yet it was such as pleasant experience (as you’ll discover) that I’ll make sure to bother him a bit to back for a deeper dive!

with 🎙️ Patrick Decker – CEO at Xylem

💧 Xylem is one of the largest water and wastewater technology companies globally and follows the simple motto: “Let’s solve water.”

This episode is part of my Series on the Water Crisis in America

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New York City did a bold move in the 1990s by betting on Nature-Based Solutions to protect its drinking water quality. Yet new challenges arise: how can nature help the Big Apple on its path to Climate Change adaptation? Let’s explore:

with 🎙️ Paul Gallay – Lecturer & Co-Director at the Columbia Climate School

💧 Columbia University is a global leader in climate and sustainability education, aiming to bring an interdisciplinary knowledge base for future climate leaders to work with businesses, communities, governments, and civil society to address the climate crisis.

This episode is part of my Series on the Water Crisis in America

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Anaergia turns wastewater plants into carbon-negative-fuel factories, capturing biogas from sewage sludge and food waste through anaerobic digestion. The Canadian company scaled that waste-to-energy platform through four acquisitions between 2008 and 2013, and trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange as ANRG.TO.

You already know that fuel: we’re talking about biomethane. But with a twist! By leveraging synergies across a city’s departments, biomethane production can grow on steroids at scale and today. How can waste and wastewater better work together? Let’s explore:

with 🎙️ Kunal Shah – Chief Growth Officer at Anaergia and council member of the World Biogas Association, the Singapore Water Association, and Imagine H2O Asia.

💧 Anaergia ambitions to convert waste into a carbon-negative fuel for a sustainable future.

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When it comes to Sustainable Development Goals, we often limit Water to SDG 6. Yet, water plays a key role in many more of them! Let’s explore it:

with 🎙️ Kevin Sofen – Director of Innovation at W. S. Darley & Co., Host of the Smart Firefighting podcast, and Co-Host of the SDG Talks Podcast.

💧 The SDG Talks podcast highlights Change Makers and their work towards the UN SDGs with a sound passion for highlighting people and organizations that will transform the world into a better place for everyone.

This episode is part of my Series on the Water Crisis in America

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2.2 million Americans don’t have access to water and wastewater services in their homes. 44 million more recently experienced water quality issues. Isn’t it time to effectively close the water gap?

The first step to closing is probably acknowledging: an information mission that’s been taken on by DigDeep. Today, we’ll explore how they act to help populations we’ve left behind for too long. Are you wondering how you could help, too? Let’s explore:

with 🎙️ George McGraw – CEO & Founder of DigDeep

💧 DigDeep is a human rights nonprofit serving the 2.2 million+ Americans without the sinks, bathtubs, or toilets that the rest of the US takes for granted.

This episode is part of my Series on the Water Crisis in America

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We’ve been regularly touching on how we’re facing an aging water infrastructure: and so is the water workforce as well! In light of the “silver wave,” we currently experience, how can we transform the water industry to attract new, diverse and dynamic talents?

This age and knowledge pyramid problem is of particular concern when you’re administrating a mid-sized or rural infrastructure. Hence today’s episode promises to be a fascinating exploration:

with 🎙️ Errick Simmons – Mayor of Greenville, Mississippi, and co-chair of the Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative.

💧 The Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative works to improve the river’s water quality, restore its habitat, coordinate the state’s efforts, create sustainable economies around the basin, and celebrate the river’s culture and history.

This episode is part of my Series on the Water Crisis in America

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The job of a Water Professional can be lonely: in many utilities, water treaters are on their own – or not far from it. But to keep you growing as a person, a certain friend has your back, your favorite water podcast.

Don’t worry; this one is not about bragging (as much as I praise my water podcast, I’m not that selfish yet!). It’s all about getting to know better one of the legends of that game:

with 🎙️ Trace Blackmore – Owner of Blackmore Enterprises and Host of the “Scaling Up! H2O” podcast

💧 The “Scaling Up! H2O” podcast intends to prove to you every week why working in Industrial Water Treatment is the best job in the world.

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Our World is facing new water challenges that will be hard to solve with old solutions only. This means that helping new entrants and mid-market green tech companies to thrive is also the best segway to putting their impact on steroids!

But navigating the jungle of finance, investment, regulations, institutions, and existing business canvas can be tough. Yet no one ever said you couldn’t get some help, as we’ll explore:

with 🎙️ James Rees – Chief Impact Officer at Botanical Water Technologies and Board Advisor at Bluerloop, Droople, and Noverram.

💧 Botanical Water Technologies strives to positively impact water scarcity by providing a new source of drinkable, sustainable, plant-based water for social and environmental projects.

This episode is part of my Series on the Water Crisis in America

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With only 9 million households that hold an insurance policy against flood risks, the most common and costly natural catastrophe is still widely undercovered in the US. Will the new federal efforts finally open the long-awaited age of pre-disaster mitigation?

with 🎙️ Nick Shufro – Deputy Assistant Administrator, Federal Insurance & Mitigation Administration, Resilience, FEMA

💧 The Federal Insurance and Mitigation Administration (FIMA) manages the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) and a range of programs designed to mitigate against future losses from all hazards, including floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, and other natural disasters.

This episode is part of my Series on the Water Crisis in America

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What’s about 28 times more concerning than carbon emissions? Methane releases into the atmosphere. It’s the same amount of carbon but with a much higher immediate global warming impact. Hence the concern when a recent study shows how we underestimate the emissions of biomethane production by a factor of two!

What’s wrong with the biomethane supply chain? Where does it leak the most? Who are these 5% of bad pupils responsible for over 60% of the emissions? What can we do about it? Let’s explore:

with 🎙️ Semra Bakkaloglu – Research Associate at the Imperial College of London

💧 Semra recently showed in her research how the methane emissions along the biosolids supply chain were vastly underestimated and proposed straightforward actions to correct it swiftly.

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Rainwater Harvesting just got an all-new flavor, and it’s sparkling! Indeed, next to the conventional approaches where that water would be used for irrigation, Richard’s Rainwater kinda created a new market segment: bottled rainwater.

How can you fight Big Water by actually putting water in cans and bottles? How’s that approach greener and more sustainable? What could it unlock in the long term? We covered this:

with 🎙️ Taylor O’Neil – CEO of Richard’s Rainwater.

💧 Richard’s Rainwater markets what it claims to be “The Water of Tomorrow,” aka Bottled Rainwater!

This episode is part of my Series on the Water Crisis in America

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Seth Siegel is a voice that counts in the Water World – having published some of the most influential water books of the past decade and spoken on every scene you can think of.

Yet, in every keynote he delivers, he never fails to captivate the audience to convey his message home. There’s something wrong with what we drink, the way we manage our water, and the allocation of the precious blue resource. And there’s a better way around: simply replicate what works! That’s far too much to pack in 30 minutes? For sure, yet I tried ⬇️

with 🎙️ Seth Siegel – writer, lawyer, activist, serial entrepreneur, and an acclaimed public speaker.

💧 You might have read his “Troubled Water” book – and if you haven’t, you should – or his international best-seller “Let there be Water,” translated into 20+ languages.

This episode is part of my Series on the Water Crisis in America

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SOURCE Global raised a US$130M Series D in 2022 to scale its solar-powered Hydropanels, a system that makes drinking water from ambient air entirely off-grid. Breakthrough Energy Ventures led the round, two years after BlackRock backed a US$50M Series C aimed at communities the centralized grid never reached.

Update: this conversation is from 2022. Four years on, SOURCE has gone quiet and effectively died. I broke down exactly what went wrong in how SOURCE Global lost everything in just 12 months.

We’ll explore today how even in the US, no less than 44 million people may need to find a solution to fix their tap, and try to evaluate how Source could fit in the role!

with 🎙️ Colin Goddard – Director at Source Global

💧 Source aims to market the world’s first renewable drinking water system. Clean, safe, made entirely off-grid, and available almost anywhere in the world.

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Isle Utilities runs the Trial Reservoir, a pot of money that funds water-technology pilots and is repaid only when a utility agrees to adopt the technology if the trial succeeds. The United Kingdom consultancy, founded in 2012, ties pilot funding directly to adoption, the step where most water innovation stalls.

What would it enable if water entrepreneurs could deploy their best ideas in weeks instead of decades? That’s what we’ll explore today (and how that’s even possible)…

with 🎙️ Piers Clark – Chairman and Founder of Isle Utilities

💧 Isle Utilities aims to bring new technologies to life by connecting expertise, investment, and inspired ideas across the globe.

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Microbial Fuel Cells represent a tremendous opportunity to tap into the hidden energy of wastewater. But beyond that, they could also turn the way we operate our plants on its head!

What if your microorganisms told you live and 24/7 how they feel and what your effluent looks like?

with 🎙️ Carol Maxwell – CEO & Director of MICROrganic Technologies and a Founding Member of ENYA Funds 1, 2, &3

with 🎙️ Brent Solina – CTO of MICROrganic Technologies

💧 MICROrganic Technologies builds a Microbial Fuel Cell platform that aims to change the way the world deals with wastewater.

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Water may well represent less than 1% of the World’s GDP, but it heavily affects the other 99%, turning it into a major economic risk.

Why and How? Let’s review!

with 🎙️ Nicola Lei Ravello – Author and Founder of White Stag Investing

💧 White Stag Investing is a research platform for responsible investments, focusing on sustainability as a source of value and stability in the long term.

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Imagine H2O is a non-profit water innovation accelerator founded in 2009 out of Harvard Business School and run from San Francisco. It began as a business plan competition, then evolved to help water startups win customers and capital, and to push utilities toward faster technology adoption. The organization invests directly too, recently co-investing US$875K in CivilGrid.

Why and How? Let’s review!

with 🎙️ Scott Bryan – President of Imagine H2O

💧 Imagine H2O is the world leading Water Innovation Accelerator with $800+M raised in early-stage funding and 1.1 billion people (and counting) served.

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Mazarine Ventures treats water as a risk to underwrite, deploying a US$60M impact fund into early-stage startups that cut water quality and quantity exposure across industrial and municipal value chains. The Chicago venture firm, founded in 2018, writes pre-seed and seed checks and backs founders whose tools let any customer measure their own water risk.

Why and How? Let’s review!

with 🎙️ John Robinson – Partner & Co-Founder at Mazarine Ventures

💧 Mazarine is an impact investor backing young technology companies with innovations that address some aspects of water risk, including quality and quantity.

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Xylem Innovation Labs brings outside water technology to market through two tracks, accelerating early-stage startups and signing later-stage ones to reseller, licensing, and white-label deals that route their products through Xylem’s own sales channels. The labs sit inside Xylem, a roughly US$8.6 billion water company that has bought 22 businesses since 2012, so partnering to reach customers marks a deliberate second lane alongside acquiring.

Why and How? Let’s review!

with 🎙️ Sivan Zamir – VP Xylem Innovation Labs

💧 Xylem is one of the largest water and wastewater technology company globally and follows the simple motto: “Let’s solve water”

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Cambi runs the thermal hydrolysis process (THP), high-pressure steam that breaks down sewage sludge before digestion so wastewater plants make more biogas and far less biosolids. The Norwegian firm trades on Euronext Oslo as CAMBI.OL and acquired the Veolia Water Technologies thermal hydrolysis portfolio in 2022, consolidating the technology it pioneered.

What’s inside these appealing thermal hydrolysis processes? Let’s review!

with 🎙️ Eirik Fadnes – CEO at Cambi Group

💧 Cambi is on a mission to turn sludge into resources thanks to Thermal Hydrolysis Processes (THP)

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BlueTech Forum 2022’s Theme was straightforward: Radical Collaboration for Regeneration. I got to chat with 6 industry leaders about their take at the matter!

with:

🎙️ Menno Holterman (President & CEO @ Nijhuis Saur Industries)

🎙️ Snehal Desai (EVP & Chief Growth and Sustainability Officer @ Evoqua Water Technologies)

🎙️ Ralph Exton (Chief Marketing & Chief Digital Officer @ SUEZ – Water Technologies & Solutions)

🎙️ Kimberly Kupiecki (Director & Global Leader Sustainability ESG, Advocacy, Communications @ DuPont)

🎙️ Jon LIberzon (VP & Head of Business Development @ Tomorrow Water)

🎙️ Kamakshi Sharma (Director of Marketing and Strategy @ Aquatech International)

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