Season 7

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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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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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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