When traditional chemistry or oxidation processes fall short, SUDOC gives them a hand by putting their efficiency on steroids. Better: it applies the Cuckoo Tactic and may well outgrow its host process, something you may want to emulate! Wanna learn how? Listen to this episode!

More #water insights? Connect with me on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/antoinewalter1/

#️⃣ All the Links Mentioned in this Video #️⃣

SUDOC's website: https://www.sudoc.com/

Momentum Capital's website: https://www.momentum-capital.com/

PureTerra Ventures' website: https://pureterra.com/

Christopher Gasson's appearance on the podcast: https://dww.show/these-2-global-water-business-blocks-will-help-to-mitigate-the-3rd-one/

🎙️ Subscribe and Listen to the Don't Waste Water Podcast HERE 🎙️

Podcast Channel: @dwwpodcast

Main Channel: @AntoineWalterDWW

Smartlink: https://smartlink.ausha.co/dont-waste-water

Website: https://dww.show/podcast/

👋 SOCIAL MEDIA 👋

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dwwpodcast/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AntoineWalter7

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DontWasteWat...

🙋 QUESTION: What would you like me to cover next?

⏰ TIME CODES ⏰

00:00 Introduction

01:28 The Chemical Challenge: Endocrine Disruptors

03:33 Sudoc's Innovative Catalysts

04:34 Investment and Market Strategy

07:49 Sudoc's Dual Business Model

13:06 The Science Behind New TAML Catalysts

19:24 Commercial Applications and Market Adoption

25:46 Future Goals and Scaling Up

30:52 Industrial Wastewater Treatment Innovations

31:23 Addressing PFAS and Emerging Contaminants

33:38 The Broader Water Treatment Conversation

36:45 The NABC Methodology and Water Sector Challenges

38:02 Sudoc's Commercial Focus and Future Plans

39:47 The Impact of Chemicals on Human Health

44:43 Sudoc's Recent Fundraising Success

47:56 Production and Scaling Strategies

49:48 The Vision for Sudoc's Future

54:06 Personal Reflections and Company Mission

57:13 Rapid Fire Questions

#Catalyst #EndocrineDisruptors

About this Episode: Welcome to the (don't) Waste Water podcast! In each episode, Antoine Walter from DWW Media shares water, wastewater & water entrepreneurship stories. This show will teach you the water industry like you've never seen it. If you're asking how the water sector will overcome the water crises ahead, this episode is for you.

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

How do you go in just a decade from an MIT lab to a billion-dollar valuation in Water Tech? Everybody thought it was impossible until... Gradiant did it! Wanna find out how and what's next? Listen to this episode!

More #water insights? Connect with me on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/antoinewalter1/

#️⃣ All the Links Mentioned in this Video #️⃣

Will Gradiant succeed with H+E where SUEZ, Stulz, and Rena failed? https://youtu.be/GMk99gRjRSc?si=zAWY2rfg3GXFSWt2E

Gradiant's website: https://www.gradiant.com/

The Global Water Awards 2024: https://globalwaterawards.com/

Prakash Govindan's LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prakash-govindan-87168310/

The 3 VCs that made money in Water Tech (the greatest success being... Gradiant): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqLn4j3w0P0

Full blog article: https://dww.show/how-gradiant-became-the-first-and-only-water-tech-unicorn/

Prakash Govindan on My Climate Journey: https://www.mcjcollective.com/my-climate-journey-podcast/gradiant

🎙️ Subscribe and Listen to the Don't Waste Water Podcast HERE 🎙️

Podcast Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@dwwpodcast

Main Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@AntoineWalterDWW

Smartlink: https://smartlink.ausha.co/dont-waste-water

Website: https://dww.show/podcast/

👋 SOCIAL MEDIA 👋

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/antoinewalter1/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dwwpodcast/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AntoineWalter7

🙋 QUESTION: What would you like me to cover next?

⏰ TIME CODES ⏰

00:00 In This Week's Episode

02:29 Will Gradiant be named Water Company of the Year?

04:20 Gradiant's "Special Sauce" by Prakash Govindan

05:46 How big is Gradiant today?

07:06 Where does Gradiant's journey start?

14:33 How did Gradiant strive where Incumbents gave up?

16:38 Why did Gradiant focus on the industrial market?

18:35 What is Turing, Gradiant's new AI spin out?

20:25 When did Gradiant start expanding its water tech portfolio?

23:02 How does Gradiant open a new region?

26:10 The secret to Gradiant's "Proprietary Deals"

30:50 How does Gradiant engineer its "unfair advantage"

31:23 Gradiant's unbelievable employee participation scheme

33:41 What's next after their record-breaking Series D?

36:53 Will Gradiant ever enter the municipal market?

38:04 Are Gradiant's founders ready to pass the baton?

39:53 Gradiant's new verticals: PFAS & DLE

42:20 Gradiant's two aces up their PFAS Removal sleeve

45:33 Gradiant's M&A tricks

48:18 Succeeding with H+E Mission Impossible?

50:07 Gradiant's plans for Europe

50:46 Gradiant's next M&A moves

51:50 What makes Gradiant the 2024 Water Company of the Year?

54:38 Rapid Fire Questions

57:53 7 Insights from the First Ever Water Tech Unicorn

#WaterTech #WaterUnicorn #WaterEntrepreneurship

About this Podcast: Welcome to the (don't) Waste Water podcast! In each episode, Antoine Walter from DWW Media shares water, wastewater & water entrepreneurship stories. This show will teach you the water industry like you've never seen it. If you're asking how the water sector will overcome the water crises ahead, this video is for you.

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Aquaporin, led by CEO Matt Boczkowski, is at the forefront of integrating biotechnology with water treatment. The company's journey began with the Nobel Prize-winning research of Peter Agre on aquaporins, which inspired Aquaporin to develop membranes that mimic these natural water channels. Initially focusing on forward osmosis due to its natural alignment with aquaporin proteins, the company has since expanded into reverse osmosis to tap into established markets and ensure revenue growth.

Aquaporin's strategic shift from a primarily residential revenue base to a balanced residential and industrial mix reflects its adaptive market approach. High-profile partnerships with companies like Gallo and Philips underscore Aquaporin's innovative edge and market credibility. The collaboration with PUB in Singapore to create energy-efficient reverse osmosis membranes exemplifies the company's commitment to addressing global water challenges through cutting-edge technology.

The company's branding, inspired by the fashion industry, sets it apart in the traditionally conservative water sector. This unique approach not only enhances Aquaporin's market presence but also resonates with consumers and industrial clients alike. Despite the challenges of being a publicly listed company, including the need for financial transparency and rigorous compliance, Aquaporin leverages its public status to secure significant partnerships and investments.

Aquaporin's focus on niche applications for forward osmosis, such as wine concentration and lithium extraction, demonstrates a strategic approach to market penetration. By concentrating on specific, high-potential sectors, Aquaporin aims to create impactful solutions that can scale effectively. The company's commitment to innovation and strategic growth is evident in its diverse product portfolio and ongoing efforts to develop new applications for its technology.

Looking ahead, Aquaporin aims to achieve profitability within the next few years, balancing growth with financial sustainability. The company's vision includes expanding its technological capabilities, particularly in making its aquaporin protein structures more universally applicable across different membrane technologies. This forward-thinking approach positions Aquaporin to continue leading in the water treatment industry, driving both technological advancements and market success.

Key Points:

1. Aquaporin uses biomimetic technology for water purification.

2. Initial focus was on forward osmosis due to natural alignment with aquaporins.

3. Expanded into reverse osmosis to access established markets.

4. Revenue shift from residential to balanced residential and industrial.

5. High-profile partnerships with Gallo and Philips.

6. Collaboration with PUB for energy-efficient reverse osmosis membranes.

7. Branding strategy inspired by the fashion industry.

8. Publicly listed on NASDAQ Copenhagen.

9. Focus on niche applications like wine concentration and lithium extraction.

10. Goal to achieve profitability within the next few years.

11. Diverse product portfolio including residential and industrial applications.

12. Innovative marketing approach differentiates Aquaporin in the market.

13. Strategic growth through targeted niche applications.

14. Commitment to technological advancements in water treatment.

15. Vision to make aquaporin proteins universally applicable across membrane technologies.

Full Episode: https://dww.show/how-aquaporin-channels-reverse-and-forward-osmosis-together-for-growth/

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

According to the US Government, the Salton Sea could produce up to 600'000 tons of Lithium per year, which at today's spot price would be worth $26 Billion a year.

For a Sea that's turning into a chemically polluted swamp, that's an unexpected twist of fate!

Especially when it doubles down to being a pretty green way to produce that lithium, as direct lithium extraction technologies would co-locate with geothermal energy production.

But wait: isn't that too good to be true? Aren't Berkshire Hattaway, Controlled Thermal Resources, and Energy Source Minerals struggling a bit to unlock that resource? Didn't Simbol Materials actually... die on that spot as a company in that endeavor?

Well, it seems like Salton Sea lithium projects are about to seriously accelerate, as Controlled Thermal Resources just announced a $1 billion contract with Aquatech International to build the Lithium Refinery the site will need to reach battery-grade products for their customers, Stellantis and General Motors. 

Let's cut through the fog and review this aspiring Salton Sea miracle!

More information:

Vulcan's Project in Germany: https://dww.show/vulcans-clever-strategy-to-take-off-its-zero-carbon-lithium-sell-it-years-ahead/

The mysterious company that may well work with Berkshire Hattaway at the Salton Sea (my pure speculation): https://dww.show/the-game-changing-company-with-60-patents-thats-disrupting-the-battery-industry/

▶️ Watch the video version of this episode on YouTube    

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

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.

What we covered:

🥇 How Vulcan aims to become the world's first integrated lithium chemicals company while also producing renewable energy... 

0️⃣ ... and how they do all of this with net zero greenhouse emissions and without using any fossil fuels in their process 

🔁 How Vulcan's Zero Carbon Lithium projects feature a 24'000 t/y first stage and what might be the next ones 

💰 How Vulcan leapfrogged its path by acquiring an existing geothermal power plant in Hinsheim, Germany 

👨‍🔬 How the company tested various Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE) methodologies to end up developing a proprietary sorption process 

🇪🇺 How this sorption material belongs to the Dow / Dupont / FMC / Livent family, but with the added touch that it's made in Europe 

🌊 How Vulcan desorbs it with fresh water, and how water availability is one of the perks of producing in the Upper Rhine Valley 

🤑 How the company plans an 84% EBITDA on its Zero Carbon Lithium product, despite a forecasted lithium price way below the current spot 

🚗 How, to whom, and under which conditions Vulcan sold its Zero Carbon Lithium product to battery and car manufacturers years ahead of actually producing it 

🏗️ How 2023 shall be pivotal for Vulcan to transform from a development company into an actual production company 

📈 How the Company has €120 Million in its bank account... and actively looks to increase its financing in order to cover for the first phase of the project 

🫰 How the Upper Rhine Valley is Europe's largest lithium resource, and a globally relevant one and how CAPEX might be the only thing to slow it down to cover for the entirety of Europe's lithium needs 

🛢️ How DLE combined with geothermal energy production might be seen as a complex mining project... or as a very easy oil and gas one! 

📅 Kicking off production in 2025, producing renewable power & heat, next projects in the Upper Rhine Valley - and on the French side, building the right team to execute the project, kicking off the commercial scale in Q3 2023... and much more!

🔥 ... and of course, we concluded with the 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 🔥

🔗 Come say hi to Cris on LinkedIn 

🔗 Check Vulcan's website

➡️ Check out the entire article on How Vulcan plans to take off its Zero Carbon Lithium assets in the Upper Rhine Valley

➡️ Reach out to me: antoine@dww.show 

More episodes in this Series:

1 - Why Water Technologies Matter in Lithium Mining (And Why You Should Buy Now!)

2 - The Shocking Requirements of Spodumene Processing (and other Lithium 101 stories)

3 - Standard Lithium's 10 Simple Secrets to DLE Success (and how that rolls out in El Dorado)

4 - How 'Reverse ZLD' made the World's Largest Water Company a Lithium Refinery Expert 

5 - The Game-Changing Company with 60 Patents That's Disrupting the Battery Industry 

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Cris Moreno is Deputy CEO at Vulcan Energy Resources. Vulcan aims to decarbonize the transition to electric mobility through its world-first Zero Carbon Lithium™ Project for electric vehicle batteries and its renewable energy business.

This exploration of the Lithium World has taken me far from home. Canada, USA, Mexico, Australia, Argentina, Bolivia, UK... But one of the most exciting projects in this new wave actually happens to be a dozen kilometers away from where I cut my wastewater engineering teeth, and Vulcan, the project developer, just signed an off-take agreement with a car factory I can see if I climb up my village's hill.

And this makes sense for a ton of reasons! First, the Rhine Valley used to be a Salt Flat, exactly like the Atacama Desert nowadays, and this was just 35 million years ago. So on the geological scale of things, it makes sense. 

Then, it is a geothermal region, and Germany actively pushes to add more geothermal plants to its energy mix, which means thousands of cubic meters of water that are pumped from that lithium-rich aquifer anyways, which allows you to emulate the example we heard from Standard Lithium, piggy-backing on Lanxess' Bromine business. 

But maybe most importantly, Europe is actively building about 30 battery gigafactories. And that's a staple in the zero-carbon transition of mobility! But to feed those factories, Europe will need lithium at some point. Today, 97% of that lithium is imported from China. And with China's own plans to further build up the battery value chain, they may well use all their lithium themselves, which would leave Europe without any white oil.

So Vulcan's endeavors in the Upper Rhine Valley, today on the German side and anytime soon on the French side, would not only be one of the largest lithium projects in the World. But from 2026 on, it might also be Europe's EV strategy lifeline - as long as I'm not fully up to speed with my own backyard project. 

So what's Vulcan's plan to a - quote unquote - "Glorified Water Processing Facility" able to deliver 24'000 tons of lithium hydroxide in its first phase, but also 300 GWh of renewable power and 250 GWh of renewable heat? Cris will be our guide, just after this reminder that if you like what you hear, if all of this is of any value to you, please take this episode and share it with a friend, a colleague, your boss, or your team, and I'll meet you on the other side!

➡️ Check out the entire article on how Vulcan enabled its Zero Carbon Lithium project by selling its products years ahead, including a teaser, a slider, and a full transcript on the (don't) Waste Water website!

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

with 🎙️ Teague Egan - CEO & Founder of EnergyX 

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

What we covered:

🌵 How the story of EnergyX started in the salt flats of Uyuni with Teague Egan's initiatory journey to Bolivia 

🗓️ How EnergyX has a masterplan and how this one goes beyond "just" supplying lithium extraction technology to the World 

🔒 How the company's claims of a disruptive approach to direct lithium extraction are backed by an impressive amount of patents all along the value chain 

☀️ What the problem with existing lithium evaporation ponds is, and how that offers significant potential for improvement for new technologies 

📜 How lithium-ion battery legend and Nobel Prize recipient John Goodenough endorsed EnergyX's efforts in the battery space and how the company breeds his legacy 

4️⃣ The four key aspects to consider when working on a lithium extraction process 

🚱 How EnergyX's take at Direct Lithium Extraction needs water neither on the membrane nor on the solvent extraction side 

🛑 How the company got kicked out of Bolivia's lithium tender for questionable reasons, and how they might come back in the game given their unique technological perks 

🚼 How pure end-to-end DLE probably is the future of lithium extraction, but how DLE enhanced ponds are the best hybrid for a smooth transition 

💰 How Global Emerging Markets Group placed a $450 million check on the table for the day EnergyX goes public, what it enables, and what it involves 

🚀 How you scale a lithium extraction approach from pilot to demo and ultimately down the road to commercial-scale applications 

👨‍🔬 EnergyX's Edisonian approach, the special sauce to the company's lithium extraction process, the lowest permissible lithium concentration for their technology (and why it's different than their competition), the company's bet as to the place where it will go full-scale first... and much more!

🔥 ... and of course, we concluded with the 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 🔥

🔗 Come say hi to Teague on LinkedIn

🔗 Check EnergyX's website

➡️ Check out the entire article on How the Lithium King and his 60 Patent-Company may well disrupt the Battery Industry

➡️ Reach out to me: antoine@dww.show 

More episodes in this Series:

1 - Why Water Technologies Matter in Lithium Mining (And Why You Should Buy Now!)

2 - The Shocking Requirements of Spodumene Processing (and other Lithium 101 stories)

3 - Standard Lithium's 10 Simple Secrets to DLE Success (and how that rolls out in El Dorado)

4 - How 'Reverse ZLD' made the World's Largest Water Company a Lithium Refinery Expert 

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Teague Egan is the CEO and Founder of EnergyX. EnergyX is on a mission to become a worldwide leader in the global transition to sustainable energy with breakthrough direct lithium extraction and refinery technologies, as well as more effective battery and energy storage solutions.

Imagine you're listening to "The End" - the famous hit of The Doors. You vaguely remember there's something pressing on your to-do list, but hey, who can resist the captivating voice of Jim Morrisson, right? 11'44 passes by, and you return to that to-do list. What's on top? Oh yeah, submit that folder for Bolivia's Direct Lithium Extraction tender.

But... 11'44 was 1'44 too long, and time is over; you're out. Kind of bitter, right? I obviously romanticized the anecdote, and I don't know if Teague is a fan of The Doors, yet one part of that story is true: EnergyX got kicked off of Bolivia's DLE tender for submitting 10 minutes late. 

I wouldn't allow myself to joke about it if Teague wasn't seeing the positives in it: EnergyX leverages 60 patents across the lithium value chain, and they've leveraged Bolivia and Uyuni as a great proof of concept! Their technology suit stands the field test, and they're able to produce lithium in a country that maybe boasts the World's largest lithium reserves, but also a quite demanding 25 to 1 magnesium to lithium ratio that defeated many challengers in that race to get Bolivia's white oil off the ground.

In today's conversation, you'll get to explore how a Direct Lithium Extraction pure player builds its path to a future EV supply chain vertical, how there may be bumps on the road, but also how exciting it is to move an Idea from the lab to a pilot then a demonstration stage and down the line, a first commercial reference. 

You'll hear of the lithium godfather and Nobel Prize recipient, John Goodenough, which is the second Nobel Prize winner we get to hear in this lithium series after Barry Sharpless that collaborated with Standard Lithium; you'll understand how an investment fund committed 450 million dollars on EnergyX and how Teague won his crown as Shale Magazine named him the Lithium King. 

➡️ Check out the entire article on how the Lithium King got 60 patents  for its battery vertical pure player, including a teaser, a slider, and a full transcript on the (don't) Waste Water website!

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

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

What we covered:

👷 How HPD onboards all its hires through its service and commissioning groups and how that's the best learning experience to Veolia Water Technologies' portfolio 

🤝 How the milestone Naraha Lithium Refinery reference started through a collaboration between Orocobre (now, Allkem) and HPD and what was the step by step road to success 

🚢 What's the magic that turns Lithium Carbonate in South America into Lithium Hydroxide Monohydrate in Japan 

🧩 How there might be standard building blocks but how every lithium carbonate is slightly different and hence requires a tailor-made lithium refining process 

🏭 Where do impurities appear in a lithium refinery process and how to remove them to guarantee a battery-grade output 

🧰 How extracting lithium from clay is still a very new process and what it changes in the lithium refinery set up 

🛠️ How Veolia Water Technologies' holistic approach is a key differentiator in the development of a lithium refinery 

🌍 How geopolitics and government incentives play a role in the economics of a lithium refinery 

👰 How the newly wed SUEZ and Veolia offer an even broader portfolio of complimentary technologies to better serve the lithium market 

📈 How DLE "suddenly" makes much more lithium available and how HPD's lithium refinery process copes with the source's specificities 

♻️ How batter-grade lithium is just one of the outputs of a lithium refinery: Veolia Water Technologies' expertise also allows to valorize several more by-products along the way 

💰 How Veolia Water Technologies' involvement in projects can help get junior lithium companies get financed as a valuable reference partner 

🗺️ Building a Lithium Refinery step by step; leaching, evaporation, crystallization, ion exchange: the lithium refinery keywords; lithium refining in the broader scheme of the EV battery vertical; turning sodium sulfate into sodium hydroxide and sulfuric acid; empowering circularity... and much more!

🔥 ... and of course, we concluded with the 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 🔥

🔗 Come say hi to Jim on Linkedin  

🔗 Check Veolia's website 

➡️ Check out the entire article on How 'Reverse ZLD' made the World's Largest Water Company a Lithium Refinery Expert 

➡️ Reach out to me: antoine@dww.show 

More episodes in this Series:

1 - Why Water Technologies Matter in Lithium Mining (And Why You Should Buy Now!)

2 - The Shocking Requirements of Spodumene Processing (and other Lithium 101 stories)

3 - Standard Lithium's 10 Simple Secrets to DLE Success (and how that rolls out in El Dorado)

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Jim RIeke is Vice President of Process Engineering at Veolia Water Technologies. Within the Veolia Galaxy, we focus today on HPD: Large-scale, highly-integrated process solutions utilizing evaporation, crystallization, and more.

If you recall what Tony Strobbe shared on this microphone a couple of weeks ago: "if you ship spodumene concentrate across the ocean, you ship 6% what you want, and 94% what you don't want."

6% is the highest you will get in lithium from hard rock, after onsite concentration from the natural 1.5% lithium content in the best spodumenes. 

To get to the battery grade 99.95%, you hence need to refine that lithium, a quite specific and key process along the EV material supply chain, in which HPD specializes - in a way Jim will explain in a minute.

That said specialization doesn't stop at lithium from hard rock, though, as we'll discover with use cases from clay, Direct Lithium Extraction, and maybe the most spectacular example, with Veolia's latest reference in refining lithium from evaporation ponds.

The way these projects are built is quite revealing of the pace of this sector as well, as Jim will describe how it can sometimes take up to seven years to freeze the process design. It's also a fascinating blueprint for circular economy and resource recovery, as by-products can be upcycled and sometimes even directly used again in the refining process. 

From a business perspective, it's also an interesting configuration at the edges of the traditional EPC approach, an integrator path, and sometimes a service and operation play. 

Wanna get how a 200-headcount division of a Water Giant became a leading lithium refining actor? Then you're at the right place

➡️ Check out the entire article on how 'reverse ZLD' perfectly defines the Lithium Refinery process including a teaser, a slider, and a full transcript on the (don't) Waste Water website!

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

😮 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 ⬇

Last year, I spoke with Andrew Benedek and Kunal Shah on this podcast, and I came out of those two episodes deeply convinced that Anaergia was changing the World for the better.

🏆 Last month, that feeling got comforted at Global Water Intelligence (GWI)'s awards ceremony, when the company won two trophies as "Net Zero Carbon Champion," but also indirectly as a contributor to the "Wastewater Project of the Year."

So I was shocked when reading GWI's last weekly briefing and discovering North America's largest organic waste-to-energy plant was in deep trouble!

But when analyzing what happened, I started noting some very familiar patterns to anyone deeply involved with the Water Industry.

To me:

3️⃣ Rialto has 3 Problems (which I detail in this episode)

🤦‍♂️ It's not the first time Regulation has come in the way of Water Companies

📜 Paul O'Callaghan's thesis on the Dynamics of Water Innovation once more helps us understand what's going on

🕯 I think Anaergia will get to the light on the other end of that tunnel

... and frankly speaking, I hope so!

▶️ Watch the video version of this episode on YouTube    

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

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

What we covered:

5️⃣ How Standard Lithium built a plan to grow to commercial direct lithium extraction (DLE) scale in five years

🔁 How you can't take lithium extraction processes off-the-shelf and how you can't copy-paste what works on a lab scale for a commercial scale

💧 How there's an overlooked part of DLE: managing high brine volumes and flows

🎁 How Standard Lithium "surprised" Lanxess with a lithium add-on to their bromine business

🤝 How you need to know what you know but also know when to team up and get support to take your project off the ground

💰 How Standard Lithium used a simple trick most companies wouldn't dare to apply: paying their partner to kick things off

🗺️ How the Lanxess project will serve as a Blueprint for replication across Arkansas' Smackover formation

⚔️ How there's no silver-bullet universal lithium extraction process and how you need to tailor it to your regional parameters

⚡ How to be future-proof and keep all options open to the evolutions in battery technology

📍 Why El Dorado, Arkansas is the absolute best place to build a lithium chemical business in North America

👍 How having a positive impact and walking the talk is key to be serious about supporting the energy transition and the EV Revolution

🌇 Fluid handling as a boring but necessary evil, developing win-win agreements, relationships to Koch Engineering and Lanxess, California and further Arkansas projects... and much more!

🔥 ... and of course, we concluded with the 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 🔥

🔗 Come say hi to Robert on Linkedin 

🔗 Check Standard Lithium's website 

➡️ Check out the entire article on Standard Lithium's 10 Simple Secrets to DLE Success  

➡️ Reach out to me: antoine@dww.show 

More episodes in this Series:

1 - Why Water Technologies Matter in Lithium Mining (And Why You Should Buy Now!)

2 - The Shocking Requirements of Spodumene Processing (and other Lithium 101 stories)

3 - Standard Lithium's 10 Simple Secrets to DLE Success (and how that rolls out in El Dorado)

4 - How 'Reverse ZLD' made the World's Largest Water Company a Lithium Refinery Expert 

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Robert Mintak is the CEO of Standard Lithium. Standard Lithium coins itself America's 21st century Lithium Company, and indeed, they shall become the first lithium developer in the World to produce direct-extracted lithium at a commercial scale in El Dorado.

What's not to love about Direct Lithium Extraction or DLE? We've seen in the first two episodes of this series how the World needs to scale from about half a million of yearly Lithium Carbonate Equivalent to 2, 3, or maybe even 5 million by 2030. And sure, you can probably extract more spodumene in hard rock mines. You can probably also evaporate more lithium-rich brines in the south american lithium triangle. But will that be enough? For many, that's still an open question, and not the only one.

How and where do you refine that lithium? Who does it? Where and how do you ship it around? And what if the ones with lithium don't want to sell to the ones with battery gigafactories. 

To answer many of these questions and more, Direct Lithium Extraction comes in pretty handy. Indeed, with DLE and the extended CRC (if you don't know that acronym, you probably shall dive into the first episode of this series with Ben Sparrow), you have an all-in-one approach that turns low-concentration brines into battery-grade lithium carbonate or hydroxide. 

Black oil fields can get a second life as a source of white oil. Geothermal projects can now kill two birds with one stone, leveraging the heat AND the lithium content. And existing brine operations, like the one Robert will talk about in a minute at the Lanxxess site in El Dorado, can start to multiply their value by adding an additional revenue stream. 

Hence my question: what's not to love about Direct Lithium Extraction?

Well, yes, it leverages processes we know quite well in the Water Industry, such as adsorption, ion exchange, membrane, thermal or electrochemical processes.

And yes, in a quite specific shape, it's been partially used since the 90s in Argentina and China.

But as an end-to-end process where unconventional brines flow in and battery-grade lithium gets extracted on the other end, it's never been scaled up to commercial sizes. There have been impressive lab studies and pilot plants, and even a handful of demo plants, one of them being Standard Lithium's one in El Dorado, another, Vulcan's one in Germany we'll discuss in a future episode. Yes, that's a spoiler. But never, ever, a full-scale plant. 

So the ability of pioneers such as Standard Lithium to manage the rollout of commercial scale DLE is something that's closely watched by an entire industry. 

How do you pick the right place to roll out? How do you build the right team? What are the decisive parameters to monitor? What's often overlooked? What makes a potential world's first full-scale Direct Lithium Extraction project? I'll let Robert take it from there.

➡️ Check out the entire article on the 10 Simple Secrets of Standard Lithium's probable world-first commercial DLE, including several teasers and a full transcript on the (don't) Waste Water website!

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Desalination often means high energy consumption and OPEX. Is there a way to make it more efficient and sustainable? Ionic Solutions thinks so - let's explore this intriguing water tech company.

Desalination technology can revolutionize water treatment by significantly reducing energy consumption and allowing controlled mineral content in the water. This approach is crucial for addressing water scarcity and improving sustainability in both industrial and municipal applications.

More #water insights? Connect with me on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/antoinewalter1/

#️⃣ All the Links Mentioned in this Video #️⃣

🔗 Ionic Solutions' Website

🔗 Come say Hi to Jordan on LinkedIn

🔗 Read my full blog entry here!

🎙️ Subscribe and Listen to the Don't Waste Water Podcast HERE 🎙️

Podcast Channel: @dwwpodcast

Main Channel: @AntoineWalterDWW

Smartlink: https://smartlink.ausha.co/dont-waste-water

Website: https://dww.show/podcast/

👋 SOCIAL MEDIA 👋

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dwwpodcast/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AntoineWalter7

🙋 QUESTION: What would you like me to cover next?

⏰ TIME CODES ⏰

00:00 Introduction

04:44 Challenges and Benefits of Ionic Solutions' Technology

10:10 Commercialization and Market Adoption

11:00 Founding Story of Ionic Solutions

14:51 Early Adopters and Market Penetration

17:08 Case Study: Utility in New York City

19:02 Overcoming Market Barriers

27:26 Innovative Water Desalination Solutions

28:23 Lithium Extraction and Brine Concentration

30:40 Global Expansion and Market Adoption

32:47 Demonstration Projects and Market Strategy

36:24 Future Vision and Company Growth

44:56 Rapid Fire Questions

#Desalination #WaterTech #IonExchange

About this Episode:

Welcome to the (don't) Waste Water podcast! In each episode, Antoine Walter from DWW Media shares water, wastewater & water entrepreneurship stories. This show will teach you the water industry like you've never seen it. If you're asking how the water sector will overcome the water crises ahead, this podcast is for you.

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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

What we covered:

⚡ How there are no electric vehicles without batteries, no batteries without lithium, and no lithium without some kind of mining, hence you have to build a supply chain 

🤝 How the closer you are to your customer, the higher the margins for your product, and the consequences this has on the lithium mining vertical 

📉 How car manufacturers could well end up being left without lithium if they donc tackle the challenge seriously 

2️⃣ How there are two ways to approach the vertical, from the bottom and from the top and where those two paths cross and meet 

💰 How the large lithium companies currently "printing money" have two paths to continue doing so, and which one is probably the best for them 

🛠️ What are the material requirements to process one ton of spodumene and turn it into battery-grade lithium carbonate or hydroxide 

💧 How ESG considerations will impact the lithium value chain today and tomorrow 

🧮 What parameters to consider when conceiving and building a lithium refinery and where to ideally locate it 

🌍 How geopolitics and history shape the current and future lithium markets 

😈 How there may well be a Powerpoint path to lithium equilibrium, but how the devil lies in the execution 

🍲 How DLE deals with a hot soup, and how this comes with its own challenges 

🚢 Lithium offer and demand, high prices solving high prices, the shelf life of Lithium Hydroxide, shipping spodumene across the World, extracting as much value as possible locally, lithium from new sources... and much more!

🔥 ... and of course, we concluded with the 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 🔥

🔗 Come say hi to Tony on Linkedin

➡️ Check out the entire article on The Shocking Requirements of Spodumene Processing 

➡️ Reach out to me: antoine@dww.show 

More episodes in this Series:

1 - Why Water Technologies Matter in Lithium Mining (And Why You Should Buy Now!)

2 - The Shocking Requirements of Spodumene Processing (and other Lithium 101 stories)

3 - Standard Lithium's 10 Simple Secrets to DLE Success (and how that rolls out in El Dorado)

4 - How 'Reverse ZLD' made the World's Largest Water Company a Lithium Refinery Expert 

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Tony Strobbe is EV supply chain Projects Director. Every Monday, he compiles a dedicated content piece he shares on LinkedIn that covers one aspect of that said supply chain, so if you like what he shares today, make sure to follow him!

I hope you haven't missed last week's conversation with Ben Sparrow from Saltworks! If you have, shame on you, but let me bring you up to speed: we're diving into the lithium value chain to discuss, evaluate and uncover the opportunities for water technologies and professionals in this rapidly growing application that taps into several layers of the water industry.

Now when you visit a foreign country, it's often a smart move to start by getting the basics of language and culture. So that's the mission I tasked Tony with today: let us break down the fundamentals of lithium processes. Why, where, and how do we refine lithium. What do we need to know on the technical side of the equation, but also on the geopolitical aspect of things. Where does the lithium value chain sit in the greater scheme of the EV supply chain?

Those are just some of the questions we'll get to answer today. And that will give us valuable keys to leverage the next nuggets in this series, such as the company that shall build the first ever commercial scale Direct Lithium Extraction project, or the dedicated team within the World's largest water company that's conceived some of the most emblematic lithium refining projects. 

Before kicking off, let me just share with you that I'm back from the Global Water Summit in Berlin and then the BlueTech Forum in Edinburg; it was a great experience to get to meet many of you and to discuss water, wastewater, water entrepreneurship, and much more. I'm so grateful for the many heartwarming feedbacks you gave me on the podcast, it means the World to me, and beyond just an ego-boost, it's critically important for me as I strive to produce you the most useful content every week. If it's the case, I'm glad it is, and you can help me out by sharing the pod with your friends, colleagues, boss, or team. Yet if you feel there's something I shall be doing differently or better, hey, feedback doesn't have to be positive: come share me your thoughts on LinkedIn or by mail: antoine@dww.show.

I also came back from both Berlin and Edinburg with great pieces of content, I spoke with the GWI team and the BlueTech team, I also cut some quite insightful interviews with Xylem, Veolia, Aquatech, Kemira, Evoqua, Gingko Bioworks, and more, I can't wait to share you all of this, once I've digested and edited it, but enough for that sidetrack and all that teasing, I'll leave the floor to Tony, and I'll meet you on the other side. 

➡️ Check out the entire article on how to sell smaller-sized Water Companies, including an infographic and a full transcript on the (don't) Waste Water website!

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

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

What we covered:

🎢 The current state of Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE) and its possible technological paths

🤝 How DLE gets paired with Concentrate Refine Convert (CRC) processes and how this takes lithium to battery-grade

4️⃣ The Two main sources of Lithium in the World and their Two Contenders (DLE & Battery Recycling)

📆 The timelines of a lithium mining project and how fast tracks are myths

🏃 How speed to market is going to be a key metric for a new lithium player's success and how to maximize your chances of success

🇨🇦 How regions with a rich mining history, such as Canada and Australia, will lead the charge in the lithium mining revolution

💧 How water processes being massively used in lithium extraction projects will have consequences on lead times and technology availability in the Water Sector

📈 How lithium mining is an industry where everybody is growing and how there is more money flowing into the sector than companies ready to receive it

🚀 Generation 1 vs 2, Evaluating a Surprise Lithium Project, what's important for DLE's Success, Key market players, Growing as a water technology scale-up... and much more!

🔥 ... and of course, we concluded with the 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 🔥

🔗 Have a look at Saltworks' website 

🔗 Come say hi to Benjamin on Linkedin

➡️ Check out the entire article on Why Water Technologies Matter in Lithium Mining (And Why You Should Buy Now!)

➡️ Reach out to me: antoine@dww.show 

Other Episodes in this Series:

1 - Why Water Technologies Matter in Lithium Mining (And Why You Should Buy Now!)

2 - The Shocking Requirements of Spodumene Processing (and other Lithium 101 stories)

3 - Standard Lithium's 10 Simple Secrets to DLE Success (and how that rolls out in El Dorado)

4 - How 'Reverse ZLD' made the World's Largest Water Company a Lithium Refinery Expert 

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Here's the full breakdown of the Water Action Agenda pledges (including the Excel table that you can download) ➡️ https://dww.show/the-truth-about-the-water-action-agenda-768-commitments-decrypted/

I fear that the UN Water Action Agenda suffers from what Barney Stinson (yes, the one from How I Met Your Mother) would call... the cheerleader effect.

Many "commitments", but at the end of the day, a lot of pretty vague ones.

So I looked into it and share you some emblematic examples in this video! But I did not stop there.

I also wanted to test out what it takes to be featured on the Water Action Agenda and decided to introduce a commitment myself. To do so, I got a bit of help: the almighty ChatGPT wrote it integrally for me in just two queries.

And guess what? It got adopted!

Now to be clear, it's not so much of a scam at the end of the day: I will really follow my pledge and publish a Water Podcast a week for the next year. And in all cases, I'll submit updates on my pledge, which isn't the norm when you find out that ⬇️

I made an additional short on how a $300 Bn pledge became a $101 Bn commitment ➡️ https://youtube.com/shorts/hc0jeCdaYns?feature=share

Timestamps:

00:00 Csaba Kőrösi presses a mysterious button

01:00 Why was the UN Water Conference happening at all?

01:58 Can the Water Action Agenda save the UN Water Conference's outcomes?

03:02 The problem with the Water Action Agenda: the Cheerleader Effect

04:10 2 Examples of Empty Statements (amongst 146 other ones)

06:37 "Lukewarm Water Commitments" (a problematic UN Water Action Agenda category)

08:22 3 Awesome Commitments (there are good ones too!)

10:08 What's the scam?

11:03 Using ChatGPT to trick the United Nations

12:42 Did it Work? 

14:12 Conclusion

➡️ Reach out to me: antoine@dww.show 

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Maybe "Lying" is too strong of a word, but at least there's a serious imbalance between what's needed, what's spoken about, and what's really pledged.

Wanna dive deeper into the topic? Check out my full video: https://youtu.be/7gksQHzCYVA

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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.

What we covered:

▫️ How unlike McKinsey, Roland Berger, or KPMG, KMM Consulting works with small Water Companies and helps them get sold, further distributed or raising money 

👴 How the most common case is to put a water company for sales to solve a succession challenge 

🔨 How some other water businesses have reached a glass ceiling for their growth and how a M&A move is the way to break it 

👐 How healthy water companies can be profitable for 45 years, active in a very good niche and scalable, and still not find any interested investor 

🤑 How founders often overestimate the value of their Water Company, why they do so, and what's a good rule of thumb to determine the right valuation 

⏰ How long a typical due diligence process lasts and what key milestones have to be crossed 

🤝 How marketing is key in selling a water company and how that often boils down to the founder's ability to convey his message and value proposition 

👔 How KMM Consulting packages its relationship to small water businesses and how that's a different approach to what most market players do 

👨‍🏫 How ESG and sustainability investors may need to get educated to the specificities of the water sector when they first step in 

📈 How some water companies are perfectly healthy and profitable and simply don't want to grow, why, and why that's absolutely fine! 

👋 How when acquiring a small water company, new owners may get nervous if the founder leaves too quickly and which kind of mechanisms, such as earn-outs, work the best to please everyone 

🍴 How the freshly created Aquarion AG acquired the established Hager und Elsässer behemoth and what you can learn from it 

💰 Drivers that amend a company's valuation, healthy growth vs. burning money, the biggest hurdles in a water company sales process, how it's a people's business, the importance of risk management, pairing technical and commercial skills, focusing on the smaller end of the water sector's pyramid... and much more!

🔥 ... and of course, we concluded with the 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 🔥

🔗 Check KMM Consulting's Website 

🔗 Send your warmest regards to Karl Michael on LinkedIn

➡️ Check out the entire article on how to sell smaller-sized Water Companies, including an infographic and a full transcript on the (don't) Waste Water website!

➡️ Reach out to me: antoine@dww.show 

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Karl Michael Millauer is the 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.

The water industry features some behemoths that regularly make the news: Veolia, Xylem, Suez... I mean, you know the usual suspects, as I have been featuring them every time there was noteworthy news to share about them.

Then, there's a fascinating wave of cool kids worth several thousands of millions, like 374Water, which I had on this microphone, or NX Filtration, which I should have on this microphone at some point; that's my mistake for not inviting them yet, and a growing pack of high-profile scale-ups raising tens of millions in seed rounds and Series A like my former guests Klir, Epic Cleantec, Source, or ZwitterCo.

Yet the water sector is also one of these typical places where the iceberg metaphor holds true! I see you rolling your eyes because that damn iceberg is overused but bear with me. 

The 50 largest water companies combined only represent 25% of the total market, which by extension, highlights how there's an ocean of small-sized players that support all shades of water applications! How many? I can't tell, and despite looking around, I couldn't put my hands on even the beginning of a statistic that would depict this bottom of the pyramid.

I guess that's one more proof that while big players get a lot of attention, expert support, and coverage when they merge or consolidate, smaller actors have long been left in a no man's land. 

Well, this is the no man's land I'm inviting you to explore this week with Karl Michael. And it's pure serendipity: I wanted to cover that topic for a while, so I got very curious when Global Water Intelligence introduced their opportunity exchange platform, featuring dozens of smaller-sized water companies looking for funding, a new owner, a distribution partner, or a licensee. Why serendipity? Well, the 35 first opportunities listed on this marketplace were all coming from Karl Michael Millauer. So I reached out, and you'll get to discover in a minute all of his openness to share a bit of his work and world!

Right before that, I'd like to thank from the bottom of my heart all the new listeners that came and joined me on this podcasting journey over the past weeks; I'm so happy to see the nice growth of this channel! I'm a one-man band, and I'm running this podcast on my free time and, let's be real, at my own expense as well, I love doing it for sure, but it's good in my long and tiring editing evenings to realize it's not for nothing, and it's bringing you some value.

So here's today's call to action: we'll have a special episode next week to close this season 8, and I have almost finished recording a special mini-season 9 that will look into the depth of the lithium industry and value chain and how that's an incredible opportunity for the water industry. I'm super excited to share this one with you, so stay tuned! This also means that I now have a bit of time to think of the upcoming season 10, and that's where I need you! If you have special wishes, areas you'd like me to explore for you, questions that keep you up at night, or guests you'd like to suggest to me, that's your chance: reach out to me on LinkedIn or send me an email at antoine@dww.show and I'll make sure that Season 10 serves you well! Come on, do it, and I'll meet you on the other side. 

➡️ Check out the entire article on how to sell smaller-sized Water Companies, including an infographic and a full transcript on the (don't) Waste Water website!

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.

What we covered:

3️⃣ How there are three types of Water Risks, physical, infrastructure, and governance, and how one should tackle the assessment of these risks 

👨‍🏫 How water risks shall be understood at all levels, from government to companies and individuals 

📈 How water risks are connected to economic development, social development and gender equality and how ignoring water risks can have long-lasting impacts on individuals and communities 

🚱 How the governance risk in managing water crisis (such as Flint) is often not given the attention it deserves 

😵 How the "40% water availability gap" risk given by the 2030 Water Resource Group is often misused and doesn't consider qualitative risks such as polluted water 

😅 How the UN Water Conference can be taken with a positive spin, assuming you joined with no expectations, and how the outcomes are pretty typical of this kind of multilateral behemoth 

♻️ How political cycles don't match with the infrastructure investments required for long-term sustainability and how decision-makers over-focus on making voters happy 

💰 How infrastructure problems cannot always be fixed incrementally, how they may require complete overhauls and how there's no clear plan on how to finance it 

💵 How linking a water risk assessment to GDP impact can help incentivize governments to take action based on it 

💪 How Jennifer created her water risk assessment training, who it caters to, and what one can expect to learn from it 

✋ Positive reinforcement of Water newcomers, the human right to Water, PFAS and its potential health consequences, the fate of a consultant's report, working for the World Bank or the UN, Water Futures, Water Markets... and much more! 

🔥 ... and of course, we concluded with the 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 🔥

➡️ Join me (and many others!) at the BlueTech Forum

Get a 20% discount on checkout by using the code ANTOINE20

👋 See you in Edinburgh!

🔗 Check the Water Risk Blueprint Website 

🔗 Get a Water Risk Crash Course 

🔗 Get a FREE Masterclass on how to assess and communicate Water Risks 

🔗 Send your warmest regards to Jennifer on LinkedIn or on Instagram

➡️ Check out the entire article on the importance of Water Risk Assessment, including an infographic and a full transcript on the (don't) Waste Water website!

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Jennifer Möller-Gulland is a Water Risk Expert and Water Economist for the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme. Jennifer is also 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.

Somewhere in Paris' headquarters of the OECD, an independent and diverse group of eminent policymakers joined forces in May 2022 to create the Global Commission on the Economics of Water.

After the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change released in 2006 and the Dasgupta Review on the Economics of Biodiversity issued in 2021, they were about to complete what they called the Sustainability Trilogy with the release of their Pact for Voluntary Commitments - an incredible report that they launched on 22 March 2023 at the UN Water Conference.

Did you hear of it? Well, let's say it wasn't a banger, but they must have a good PR team, so it gathered some mainstream media attention. That's where Jennifer picked it up and looked up their Water Risk Assessment.

The result is history: a nicely crafted, pedagogic, positively toned yet affirmative LinkedIn post shared 113 times, where she calls out their b***s***.

Hey, that intro is not about name and shame. But I'm telling you that story because it seems that even though the World Economic Forum's yearly Global Risk Report has water-related ones all over its top ten, there's a severe deficit in understanding, framing, and running water risk assessments. 

Yet how can we solve problems we don't understand and cannot size correctly? As Jennifer will explain in a minute, that's a challenge that shall be understood at all levels, from the government to companies and individuals, because water risks are connected to economic development, social development, GDP, every facet of the economy and even gender equality so clearly, ignoring water risks can have long-lasting impacts on individuals and communities.

So let's fix that, and let me close this intro and leave the floor to Jennifer, just after reminding you that you still have a couple of days left to book your seats for the upcoming BlueTech Forum, happening in Edinburgh on the 17th and 18th of May under the tagline of Innovation with Impact. 

The agenda is packed with great speakers, mastermind roundtable sessions, "innovation for impact" box design sprints, 5 by 5 partnership case studies, lots of networking opportunities, and BlueTech's signature cherry-picked disruptive water tech innovations. 

Check out the full agenda on bluetechforum.com - the link is in the description - and consider joining me and many former guests of this podcast in Edinburgh this May. If that's of interest, here's the cherry on the cake: with the code Antoine20, like my name, 20, you'll get a 20% discount on your registration if you book before the end of April, so hurry up; the doors are closing!

➡️ Join me (and many others!) at the BlueTech Forum

Get a 20% discount on checkout by using the code ANTOINE20

👋 See you in Edinburgh!

🔗 Check the Water Risk Blueprint Website 

🔗 Get a Water Risk Crash Course 

🔗 Get a FREE Masterclass on how to assess and communicate Water Risks 

🔗 Send your warmest regards to Jennifer on LinkedIn or on Instagram

➡️ Check out the entire article on the importance of Water Risk Assessment, including an infographic and a full transcript on the (don't) Waste Water website!

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.

What we covered:

⚛️ How ZwitterCo's unique leverage of zwitterions overcomes membranes' greatest weakness: fouling 

🚀 How Alex Rappaport built a record-breaking membrane scale-up somewhat against the odds and how ZwitterCo was founded 

📅 How improving membranes and wastewater treatment was on the founding team's agenda from Day 1 and how they executed on it 

🦸 How ZwitterCo leveraged the SuperFiltration category to depict the unique properties of their wastewater membrane 

💡 How Water Scarcity and its increased awareness in industrial circles create a massive opportunity for the right set of technologies to address it 

🚚 How ZwitterCo defined its scope of deliveries and how the company decided for the best-suited Go-To Market Route 

🙌 How Alex's company just raised a record-breaking Series A and what this will unlock 

🌱 How the real impact ZwitterCo is aiming for goes beyond numbers - even if we are talking unicorn potential 

🇩🇪 What "Zwitter" actually means, how zwitterions are special animals, extending the range, leveraging real-world cases and feedback

🔥 ... and of course, we concluded with the 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 🔥

➡️ Join me (and many others!) at the BlueTech Forum

Get a 20% discount on checkout by using the code ANTOINE20

👋 See you in Edinburgh!

🔗 Check ZwitterCo's Website 

🔗 Send your warmest regards to Alex on LinkedIn

➡️ Check out the entire article on ZwitterCo's leverage of Zwitterions and how it could revolutionize the World of industrial wastewater treatment, including an infographic and a full transcript on the (don't) Waste Water website!

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Ionic Solutions is transforming the desalination landscape with its innovative ion exchange membrane technology, which offers significant advantages over traditional reverse osmosis (RO) systems. The company's technology stands out due to its exceptionally low power consumption, with some applications achieving up to 97% less energy use compared to RO. This efficiency is particularly evident in low salinity brackish water desalination, though the technology performs well across various applications, typically saving 60-90% in energy costs.

One of the key features of Ionic Solutions' technology is its ability to control the mineral content of treated water, allowing for tailored solutions that reduce the need for post-treatment mineral addition. This flexibility is especially valuable in drinking water applications and other industrial processes where specific mineral balances are required.

The company targets both industrial and municipal sectors, offering solutions that can augment or replace existing RO systems. A notable success story includes a partnership with a utility in New York City, where Ionic Solutions' technology significantly reduced water and energy costs, contributing to the city's sustainability goals.

Strategic partnerships, such as with the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), have been crucial in validating and promoting the technology. These collaborations have helped Ionic Solutions gain credibility and demonstrate the practical benefits of their solutions.

Despite the clear advantages, market adoption remains a challenge. The water industry is heavily invested in traditional RO systems, and there is a learning curve associated with adopting new technologies. However, Ionic Solutions is addressing this through demonstration projects and participation in technical conferences to educate engineers and potential clients.

Looking ahead, the company aims to expand its technology's applications, including potential use in lithium brine concentration and consumer-level water treatment systems. To support this growth, Ionic Solutions plans to scale up manufacturing and potentially establish production centers in different regions to meet global demand.

Fundraising will be a critical component of this expansion, as the company seeks investors interested in making a significant impact on water sustainability. With a mission to increase water security and efficiency, Ionic Solutions is poised to make a substantial contribution to addressing global water challenges.

Key Points

1. Ionic Solutions redefines desalination as removing salt ions from any water source.

2. The technology achieves up to 97% less power consumption compared to traditional RO systems.

3. It allows for controlled mineral content in treated water.

4. The company targets both industrial and municipal sectors.

5. Successful case study: Utility in New York City saved water and energy costs.

6. Strategic partnership with EPRI validated the technology.

7. Market adoption remains a challenge due to entrenched RO systems.

8. Future applications include lithium brine concentration.

9. Plans to scale up manufacturing and establish global production centers.

10. Fundraising is critical for expansion and impact on water sustainability.

Full Episode: https://dww.show/how-ionic-solutions-trades-high-pressure-for-high-efficiency-in-desalination/

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Alex Rappaport is the CEO and Co-Founder of ZwitterCo. ZwitterCo leverages the benefits of Zwitterions to build Membranes that treat the world's toughest wastewater.

Theoretically speaking, wastewater treatment is easy. You have water with stuff inside at the inlet, and you want water with much less stuff inside at the outlet. So you just have to define what has to be removed, and you could size a membrane to do exactly that job.

Let's say, you want everything that's larger than 1 nanometer to be out of the picture. You take a reverse osmosis membrane, you push your wastewater on one end, and whatever comes out on the other end will fit your specification. Easy, the job's done, goodbye!

Well... The problem is that if that system was to work, it would for sure not work long. Your membrane would be clogged, and irreversibly fouled, and after minutes to hours, you would have to throw it away and start fresh.

Now, nobody except me would be stupid enough to try something like that out. So in most cases, you won't go for a one-step treatment; you'll rather opt for a clever combination, where stuff gets removed from water layer by layer with optimized efficiency. 

Stages of this process will probably be done with membranes, and if you want to end up reusing that water, the last step will for sure be done with membranes.

But even if you have this time designed everything right, your membranes will still clog over time, and backwash will lose efficiency cycle after cycle until irreversible fouling is so high you have to replace your system.

So, every 7 to 12 years, you're good to reinvest in membranes, modules, and some peripherals. Unless someone cracks the code for fouling-free membranes... But that's physically not possible, right?

Well, that's before looking into the surprising physical properties of Zwitterions, a special family of molecules that are simultaneously positively and negatively charged. As a result, they're highly hydrophilic and very resistant to non-specific adhesion. 

So wouldn't that make them the best special sauce to pump up a membrane filtration system? I'll let Alex answer this in a minute, as he'll do it so much better than me. 

But you'll swiftly notice that it's a fascinating take at the toughest wastewaters and most difficult industrial reuse riddles.

To that extent, ZwitterCo is a perfect example of innovation with impact. If that's a theme you'd like to explore in greater depth, Innovation with Impact is also the tagline of the upcoming BlueTech Forum, happening in Edinburgh on the 17th and 18th of May. The agenda is packed with great speakers, mastermind roundtable sessions, "innovation for impact" box design sprints, 5 by 5 partnership case studies, lots of networking opportunities, and BlueTech's signature cherry-picked disruptive water tech innovations. 

That's just a bite-sized summary of a packed agenda - if you'd like to know more, check out bluetechforum.com - and consider joining me and many former guests of this podcast in Edinburgh this May. I talked of cherry-picked innovation: well there's a cherry on the cake as well: with the code Antoine20, like my name, 20, you'll get a 20% discount on your registration if you book before the end of April.

➡️ Join me (and many others!) at the BlueTech Forum

Get a 20% discount on checkout by using the code ANTOINE20

👋 See you in Edinburgh!

➡️ Check out the entire article on ZwitterCo's leverage of Zwitterions and how it could revolutionize the World of industrial wastewater treatment, including an infographic and a full transcript on the (don't) Waste Water website!

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Join me (and many others!) at the BlueTech Forum ➡️ https://www.bluetechforum.com/

Get a 20% discount on checkout by using the code ANTOINE20

👋 See you in Edinburgh!

***

Over the past five years:

- NX Filtration lost $28.56 million

- De.Mem burned $12.14 million

- CleanTeq Water was $18.63 million in the red 

- Aquaporin lost... $67.1 million!

Yet, I'll dare to say I think those four companies are on the right track!

Why? Let's explore.

Then, there's one more company that's lost $39 million over that same period of time, for which I'd be much more worried. Who's that? I'll reveal in the last segment!

00:00 Introduction

00:07 Aquaporin, NX Filtration, De.Mem and CleanTeq Water are bleeding money

00:53 Membrane Companies are "Special Beasts"

02:19 What is disruptive in the Membrane World? 

04:30 What are these Membrane Companies investing their money on?

05:44 Is increased Water Scarcity the path to Profit for these companies?

06:58 Join me at the BlueTech Forum 2023!

07:50 This company is in BIG TROUBLE

09:16 Conclusion

The Ultimate Guide of Membrane Filtration: https://youtu.be/RUpiL_x7680

Graeme Pearce tells us the full story of Membrane Filtration: https://dww.show/everything-you-always-wanted-to-know-about-mbrs-without-daring-to-ask/

Andrew Benedek adds up the story of MBRs: https://dww.show/how-to-be-alone-early-crazy-but-actually-right-the-history-of-zenon/

▶️ Watch the video version of this episode on YouTube   

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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. 

Marketing is not the Water Industry's forte. I dare you to find one out of the 187 previous episodes of this podcast in which we don't at least allude to the flaws in our sector's marketing. 

We've discussed how it impacts water's value, water's perception, water technology's take-off and market adoption, the general public's understanding of our sector, how it inhibits the fight against water scarcity, how it opens boulevards for bottled water or unsustainable practices and much more and much worse.

But, once we've said all that. What do we do about it?

Sitting on our hands and complaining is not really in the DNA of this sector, so it's about time we apply this forward thinking to marketing as well. That requires some know-how, some understanding of the root causes of the situation we're in, a ton of expertise, and, more important: practical, concrete, and actionable pieces of advice. 

That is why I reached out to my co-host on the Water Show, Björn Otto, and gave him this simple task. Provide water industry decision-makers, investors, and key actors with a blueprint for action. And god, did he deliver on the request! So without further due, I'll let you dive into my discussion with him.

Last stop before that - if you like today's content, consider subscribing and sharing that episode with your boss, a colleague, your marketing manager or that promising young engineer in your team you'd think would make an incredible marketer going forward

🔥 ... and of course, we concluded with the 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 🔥

🔗 Send your warmest regards to Björn on LinkedIn    

🔗 Check out Interius Solution's website  

▶️ Find the full article on why and how Water Companies shall Better their Marketing Game on the (don't) Waste Water website!

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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.

What we covered:

🚽 How leading the project that infamously popularized the term "toilet to tap" made Paul famous and what his job was in San Diego 

👨‍🔬 How Paul led a research center that tested equipment, gave a brutally honest feedback and assessment and how he rapidly got praised for that 

🈂️ How becoming a consultant engineer, one of his first duties was to translate what utilities said so that his colleagues could understand it 

🏰 How the water sector used to be extremely conservative and somewhat trapped in the 19th century and how things drastically changed over the last decade 

🧑 How the startup founder is almost as important as the technology and the market the company aims for, why, and what to do now that you're aware of that 

🚧 How some inventors believe in their technology despite the fundamental laws of physics and how to overcome their harassing demands 

⚖️ Defining a set of rules to check and assess technology in the most effective manner and how despite all precautions taken to make it a science, there is still some subjectivity in it 

🧑‍⚖️ How the more disruptive your technology is, the more people will want to compare it to things they know and understand to better assess the value you're delivering 

📊 How you need to think of data collection from the onset when piloting and how there are a set of best practices that support your efforts in this endeavor 

🤌 How expertise can be tricky: the more expertise someone has, the less likely that person is to look at something new because they think they already know everything 

0️⃣ Startups having zero experience in the water business, getting paid as a utility and having to figure out what to do with the money, how founders have to be prepared to be replaced when the company grows, being an open book, being smarter than everybody else, seeing the future... and much more! 

🔥 ... and of course, we concluded with the 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 🔥 

🔗 Send your warmest regards to Paul on LinkedIn  

🔗 Check out the Water Entrepreneur Podcast's Website

🔗 Find the full transcript of my conversation with the inventor of the Toilet to Tap on the (don't) Waste Water website!

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Paul Gagliardo is a judge and advisor at Imagine H2O, and the Principal of a consultancy dedicated to developing water start-ups, Gagliacqua. If you're into podcasts, and I hope you are as you're listening to this, 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.

The path to success for a Water Start-Up is often everything but a straight line. It takes time, patience, effort, grit, passion, and a lot more to take a water company from zero to one, one to ten, ten to one thousand, and one thousand to one million.

And we've covered some of the emblematic examples of that long road on that microphone, for instance, with Andrew Benedek, who told us how he maybe took Zenon from the lonely prophet in the middle of the desert to the leader of the MBR revolution, but in no less than two decades.

Now, what Paul brings into the discussion today, as you already heard in the extracts, is that the Water Sector is evolving. It doesn't get easier, but it goes at a faster pace. And interestingly, the turning point that started that acceleration coincides with the inception of Imagine H2O - a story we've covered with Scott Bryan on that microphone, and in which Paul is an important actor. 

This new age of breaking things fast and striving for swifter impact materializes in many shapes. For instance, the financial results recently published by the new cool kids on the block in the Water Industry show that the money-burning path to scale, once reserved for the Uber, Twitter, or WeWork of this World, now also applies to the Water Sector. To take only one example.

With a faster pace also comes greater uncertainty and increased importance in making the right decision at the right time. This is where profiles like Paul's are an incredible resource: having been on all ends of the Water Spectrum, they've gathered experience that can prove invaluable to the C-suite and founders of these scale-ups. To that extent, you'll see that today's conversation doubles down and enhances on concepts we've heard from Wayne Byrne, Graeme Pearce, Reinhard Hübner, or Piers Clark. 

In conclusion to this lengthy introduction, I can tell you that I enjoyed spending that hour with Paul, that I hope you will as well, and that if that's the case, I'd strongly encourage you to take this podcast and share it with a friend, a colleague, a start-up founder or an investor! So please do it, and I'll meet you on the other side. 

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Over the weekend, a series of violent riots took place in Sainte Soline in the Western part of France.

The reason for it is a water storage project that has raised contestation for several months now.

Is it the first consequence of rising Water Scarcity?

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689 Registered Commitments!

That's an impressive call to action that comes out of the #UNWaterConference in New York this week.

Sure, there were the usual shenanigans we saw on Days 1 & 2, but still, the various commissions delivered impressive outputs.

And yes, a special envoy for Water will be appointed. So here's the next question: who will it be?

Here's the summary:

00:00 Introduction

00:15 Number of the day: 689!

00:48 Key Outcomes of the UN Water Conference

02:35 The Transboundary Water Bromance in South America

03:59 More water commitments by the Interactive Dialog Groups

04:34 Who did it better: young or old speakers?

06:18 Third series of Water Commitments

07:45 A New UN Water Envoy... and Beyond?

09:09 How to Leverage the UN Water Conference

09:44 Conclusion

➡️ Check out my entire collection of SDG 6 topics on the (don't) Waste Water website!

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The UN Water Conference keeps advancing in New York, with this second day and a new series of plenary sessions with many country statements.

What's to remember from today? Here's the recap.

00:00 Introduction

00:22 Sentence of the Day: László Borbély, Romania

00:47 Learning 3 - Are we ambitious enough with #SDG6?

02:02 Learning 2 - PPPs have their role to play!

03:36 Learning 1 - We learn more about the UN Special Envoy for Water!

06:20 Daily Zapping

07:26 Flop 3 - Are UN attendees bad pupils?

08:16 Flop 2 - Water and War(s) Ukraine, Karabagh...

11:42 Flop 1 - Are UN Statements boring?

14:29 Conclusion

➡️ Check out my entire collection of SDG 6 topics on the (don't) Waste Water website!

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The UN Water Conference started on the 22 of March in New York. For the first time since Mar Del Plata in 1977, the Water Topic gets the largest possible exposure to solve this riddle: how can we finally ensure that SDG 6 is reached? That everybody receives access to safe drinking water and wastewater management?

On Day 1, there were many very generic statements and some things to extract, which I did for you. 8 hours of plenary conferences condenses in under 15 minutes, a challenge? Yes. A stretch? Sure!

But I did it, and here's what's inside:

00:00 Introduction

00:14 The Key Sentence

02:08 Top 3 Highlights of Day 1

07:51 Zapping - Good Words and High-End Sequences

10:00 Flop 3 - the Awkward moments

12:57 Conclusion

➡️ Check out my entire collection of SDG 6 topics on the (don't) Waste Water website!

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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.

What we covered:

🌱 How Sustainability professionals are pushing for change and how the greatest hurdles standing in the way of that change are overwhelmingly powerful individuals and organizations that are change resistant 

😈 How defining people as "evil" is a major mistake that hinders your chances to convince them, why, and what to do instead 

1️⃣ The one feature that drives human survival more powerfully than any other one and how you can leverage it for the better 

🏗️ How reality is a construct and not an absolute and objective thing and how you need to understand that to succeed in negotiating 

🎯 How being goal driven instead of objective is sadly a much more powerful survival feature and how you need to know that to drive sustainability forward 

🥇 How the best way to kill a negotiation is to enter with a sense of moral superiority, why and what to do instead 

👀 How you need to be driven to a clear and well defined strategic goal to succeed in negotiation and how you shall never lose sight of your strategy 

💪 Teaching negotiation, realizing being on the wrong side, having an impact, human psychology, human evolution... and much more!

🔥 ... and of course, we concluded with the 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 🔥

🔗 Send your warmest regards to Ben on LinkedIn 

🔗 Check out Negotiating with Goliath's Website 

🔗 Find my full article including a transcript on how to win at negotiating with the most powerful stakeholders 

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Water Stewardship and Water Risk Mitigation will be key topics of the upcoming decade. But how can you measure your impact and performance on these if there's no scale? That's where SCS 116 enters the picture: let's explore!

More #water insights? Connect with me on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/antoinewalter1/

#️⃣ All the Links Mentioned in this Video #️⃣

SCS Global Services - https://fr.scsglobalservices.com/services/water-stewardship-and-resiliency-certification

CDP Water - https://www.cdp.net/en/water

Axiom Climate - https://www.axiomclimate.com/

Microsoft / Fido AI - https://fido.tech/news/fido-and-microsoft-collaboration-continues-expansion-to-mexico/

Global Water Intelligence / XPV - https://my.globalwaterintel-insights.com/l/2DC/watersecurityinvestment

Protect Our Winters - https://protectourwinters.org/

🎙️ Subscribe and Listen to the Don't Waste Water Podcast HERE 🎙️

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🙋 QUESTION: What would you like me to cover next?

⏰ TIME CODES ⏰

00:00 Introduction

04:22 Understanding Water Stewardship and Its Importance

05:00 The Need for Water Stewardship Standards

06:48 The Role of SCS in Water Stewardship

08:29 Challenges and Opportunities in Water Stewardship

20:27 The SCS 116 Water Standard

26:45 Future of Water Stewardship and Standards

34:13 Facing Criticism

37:04 Feedback and Gaps in Standards

41:12 Global Water Index Debate

46:00 Axiom Climate Updates

49:10 Impact of Educational Initiatives

53:58 Rapid Fire Questions

#WaterStewardship #WaterImpact #WaterStandard

About this Episode:

Welcome to the (don't) Waste Water podcast! In each episode, Antoine Walter from DWW Media shares water, wastewater & water entrepreneurship stories. This show will teach you the water industry like you've never seen it. If you're asking how the water sector will overcome the water crises ahead, this podcast is for you.

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How much is TOO much?

That's the question I'm asking, as Sabrina Soussan is about to get appointed to the board of Boeing. Indeed, with her roles as CEO of SUEZ and Chairman of the Board, but also as a board member of ITT, that makes quite a lot of different hats to wear.

Doesn't it start to be slightly too much to still deliver as CEO of SUEZ?

▶️ Watch the video version of this episode on YouTube   

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For some months now, I've been asking some of the most brilliant water professionals for insight on the UN Water Conference. I've asked them what they would have put on the conference's agenda. I've asked them what topics needed to be discussed amongst world leaders to finally solve the water riddle. 

Will their recommendations be applied? We'll discover that next week. And, even if I have watered-down hopes from the conference, I'll be following every word that's spoken in New York, and I'll prepare you a daily digest of what's noteworthy. 

If that's of interest, you may want to subscribe so that you don't miss it - and if you do, that might help to cheer me up and to sustain the workload over the three nights I'll spend on it, with the time zone difference, so I'd appreciate the support.

For today, I've compiled the best inputs from the experts I spoke with so that we get a sense of the Agenda the Water Sector would have built. 

Will the UN follow track? I'll make sure to check. Would you have put something else on the schedule? Well, that one's fully up for discussion, so I'd be curious to read your input in the comments!

➡️ Check out my entire collection of SDG 6 topics on the (don't) Waste Water website!

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

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

What we covered:

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 How the key to success is the team as it enables to turn a product into a solution 

💁🏻 How when it comes to ozone, people don't look for a technology but for help - and how you can apply that in your everyday business 

🔁 How engineering houses and consultants like to repeat what's proven to work - and how to convince them to embrace new approaches 

⚡ How there's much more to understand about ozone than just the generation and the bubbling. It's all about the application! 

📈 How to understand the development stage of your company, avoid to freak out and react accordingly 

🛩️ How different it is to be an agile smaller player compared with established large moguls 

👪 How trade organizations can be incestuous (that's me saying it, not Michael!) and what they bring to the overall industry 

🌎 How you have to nail your domestic market before spreading yourself too thin in unknown waters 

🤝 How there are synergies to find between market players to leverage everyone's strengths 

🚀 Inheriting clients, aiming for higher agility, learning entrepreneurship the hard way, aiming for impact, Aclarus Ozone's figures and growth numbers, generational shifts in engineers... and much more!  

🔥 ... and of course, we concluded with the 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 🔥

🔗 Send your warmest regards to Michael on LinkedIn  

🔗 Check out Aclarus Ozone's website 

➡️ Check out the entire article on Aclarus Ozone's story and how it can inspire water entrepreneurs, including an infographic and a full transcript on the (don't) Waste Water website!

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Michael Doran is the president and co-founder of Aclarus Ozone. Aclarus aims to solve complex water problems with advanced ozone technology.

The ozone world is a 1.4 billion-a-year niche I used to know pretty well, as that's where I've cut my water teeth. It's been around for over a century, with the ozonation step of the Nice drinking water plant in France continuously operating since 1906.

On the players' end, you've got Veolia and Xylem as established market leaders, a new wave of Chinese players that might well be of equivalent size today, like Newland or Guolin, proponents of modular approaches such as Primozone or Pinnacle, and historic Japanese moguls that quietly exist to hunt a white elephant from time to time, such as Metawater or Mitsubishi. 

All that little band meets several times a year in International Ozone Association gatherings, where they are joined by academics, and grows steadily under the influence of new regulations and higher water quality expectations on both ends of the Water Cycle.

On the technological side, I remember how excited my R&D colleagues were when a multi-year development program yielded some percent of performance improvement - and they were and probably still are the top-notch guys in this industry. So safe to say there's a technological asymptote, and that sector tends to it. 

All in all, it's not the worst business to be in, I've enjoyed my ozone years, and I've learned so much, but it's probably not the most exciting either, still, if you ask me.

So if you can't really expect to disrupt the technology, if it's around for a while, if it has established players, and if it won't go through the roof. Why would you start a company in this field?

Well, that's one of the keys to today's conversation with Michael. Because it goes against all the preconceptions: there's much to innovate on the business side, the customer service, the go-to-market, the overall approach, the solution mindset, and many more that Michael will detail in a minute.

You don't have to create a category or prove a technology from scratch. Executing better than anyone is also a key skill - if not THE key skill - but enough from hearing it from me. My guest will tell you all of that much better.

So let us take off, just after this reminder, that if you like what you hear, if you think this will be of interest and value to someone else out there, there's only one way to spread the message: take this episode and share it with them. Drop a WhatsApp message, a LinkedIn InMail or status, an SMS, a hint at the coffee machine or simply tell them. Really, that's how podcasts spread, and that's how I know I shall continue to provide more of them! Come on, do it, and I'll meet you on the other side!

How to Win in a Competitive & Mature Niche Market: The Astonishing Aclarus Ozone 

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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.

What we covered:

♻️ What Life Cycle Assessment actually is, and what outcomes to expect from it

🦶 How Water Footprint is one of the dimensions of Lifecycle Assessment

🌐 How there won't be any water circularity without a global circularity - a topic we had already addressed with Gonzalo Delacámara last week

👨‍⚖️ How sustainability can involve difficult calls to make for decision-makers and how LCA can help make the right decisions

🌱 How SMEs can benefit from Lifecycle Assessment not only for their own growth path but also to better interact with large companies

🛣️ How sustainability is on the roadmap of most CEOs for their companies' future but also their present

🍲 How circularity will have to play an increased role in the agri-food value chain

🛠️ What to do once you've completed your Lifecycle Assessment and which tools and steps come next

🗑️ How wasted food is also a lot of wasted water, and how new approaches strive to fight that sustainability non-sense

🫲 Coaching SMEs, Lecturing at the University, startups as a way to feed major's innovation, demonstrating impact to a wide audience... and much more!

🔥 ... and of course, we concluded with the 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 🔥

🔗 Send your warmest regards to Dubravka on LinkedIn 

➡️ Check out the entire article on how life cycle assessment can help make sustainable decisions, including an infographic and a full transcript on the (don't) Waste Water website!

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Dubravka Skunca is LCA Representative and Expert for the European Commission, but also an SME Support leader at the European Regional Development Fund, a Business Consultant, and a 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.

If our industrial World wants, one day, to return to its circular origins, it will need to leverage the right tools. This is where LifeCycle Assessment or LCA kicks in.

Indeed, by evaluating the environmental impacts of a product or service over its entire life cycle, 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.

I won't tell you too much about it in this intro, as Dubravka will do that much better than me in a minute, but I'm pretty sure that the toolbox she'll present today can be of interest to help you take better and/or more sustainable decisions in the future!

So let's jump into it, of course, once I've reminded you that if you like what you hear, you can take this episode and share it with a friend, a colleague, your boss or your LinkedIn Network. Come on do it, and I'll meet you on the other side!

How to Leverage Life Cycle Assessment To Take Better Decisions

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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.

What we covered:

🔗 How "Water" doesn't stop at the water sector itself but is heavily interlinked with the World around it and how "Water People" have a hard time figuring this out 

☵ How nobody seeks Water in the end, but rather the benefits Water provides 

👴 How the World's water institutions are not catered to the era we live in and how this has consequences 

💵 How we benefit from nature's services and how those can be assessed in economic terms 

♻️ How water circularity doesn't exist in isolation, and how the World needs to become circular first 

🔖 How even if Water doesn't have a price, it always has a cost - and how we shall better account for that 

📅 How getting our s*** together for 2050 will require breaking it down into digestible pieces 

🤌 How the largest water challenges may well happen outside of the Water Sector and how to adapt to this new realm 

🤖 Water trading, water governance, new technologies, planning for a World that doesn't exist anymore, the agriculture-energy-water nexus, the roadmap to real sustainability... and much more!

🔥 ... and of course, we concluded with the 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 🔥

🔗 Send your warmest regards to Gonzalo on LinkedIn

➡️ Check out the entire article on how we make wrong water decisions, including an infographic and a full transcript on the (don't) Waste Water website!

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Gonzalo Delacámara is 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.

Why does the World misbehave when it comes to Water? Why can't Water be truly circular when all water professionals agree it should be? Why do we still have to evangelize the World to the treasures of resource recovery? The list goes on and on. And from inside the Water Industry, it can get frustrating. 

Yet, there's an unpleasant truth to accept: the Water Sector is an epiphenomenon on the broader scale of things. I know it's unfair, and it probably doesn't make sense, but it is simply and coldly true. This is how, as per the example Gonzalo shares today, people will pump up desalinated Water from the Sea to the Atacama desert - which represents the trifle of 250 bars of pumping - just because the commodity market can cover the cost.

No one will dare to argue that it is sustainable to waste Water and energy just for some bits of copper. But as Gonzalo will demonstrate in a jiffy, the wrong incentives lead to the wrong results.

So I'll let him develop the argumentation, as he'll do it much better than what I would bastardize here, but I will lead into that conversation with a straightforward question for all of us.

In one month from the date I release this episode, the Water's who's who will converge to New York for the UN Water Conference. You've heard it all: once in a lifetime, didn't happen since Mar Del Plata in 1977, bla bla bla. 

But are we sufficiently applying this advice we've got from Claudia Winkler and Alice Schmidt on this microphone by Season 3,  Episode 6? Are we zooming out before we zoom in? Will we aim for real solutions that break the water silo and really embrace the circularity nexus, or will we waste this opportunity with short-sighted debates? 

If one assembly has the power to finally set the right incentives, that should be this one. So if you know a delegate that will attend the main or a side event, take this episode, and send it to him. Tell that water who's who that water people won't solve water alone. That we need circularity in the decision-making so that the entire system of systems ultimately gets circular. 

Tell them, do it, and I'll meet you on the other side!

Why do we have so many Good Reasons to make Wrong Water Decisions?

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Private Capital very often has a bad rap in the Water Sector. It is indeed hard for many to overcome the misconception that water has to be free. Yet if everyone is in his full rights to run around with a bucket and freely collect rainwater; sourcing, treating, conveying, managing, and reclaiming the water that feeds America and its economy has a cost and a (tremendous) value. So, how can private capital help solve the broken economics that makes for the Water Crisis in America?

Getting America’s broken water economics back on track is beyond the capacity of any of the economic sources individually. Hence, the solution will have to come from a blend of various sources.

• Federal money, in line with the $111 Billion Infrastructure investment, but not limited to it as it barely covers one-fourth of the immediate funding needs, one-tenth for the long term.
• Private-Public Partnerships to leverage the private sector’s capital and know-how together with the public sector’s frame.
• Private investment in water, probably beyond today’s 15% ownership, and conditioned to the ability to become profitable as an economic field to guarantee long-term sustainability.
• Philanthropic investments, blended with others, to build the perfect equilibrium that generates impact in the long run.

▶️ Watch the video version of this episode on YouTube  

▶️ Check out my full article on what Greedy Capitalists can do to help the US Water Sector

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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.

What we covered:

🚀 How Membrion ended up becoming a Water Company and how it was due to some smart investors 

♻️ How shocking some of the common traits of the Water Industry can be for outsiders, and how that's an opportunity to have a high impact 

🔗 How the most precious asset for a young water company is to have a direct link to its customers and how to actually foster it 

🛞 How there is nothing to win in reinventing the wheel: you shall leverage your peer's knowledge. Plus, they're willing to share! 

💡 How you can treat any stream with a membrane, but only a few profitably - unless you have a trick to optimise or short-cut pre-treatment 

🚚 How industrial wastewater that gets trucked away is a very complex soup to handle, and how to solve that riddle 

🙌 How the right solution leads to a win-win: it is both profitable and sustainable 

🤝 Starting a relationship by proving the solution can work in the worst possible conditions to win a customer's confidence 

🎲 Pivoting the company to define the right value chain segment to cover and growing from a membrane to a module 

📈 How to transform a pilot into a demo, a full scale and ultimately a flagship reference 

💧 How water scarcity brings back the real sense of the value of water, especially in an industrial context 

🏎️ Connecting passion, technology, entrepreneurship, and harsh realities, how it feels to get accelerated from the inside, derisking new solutions, replacing an industry standard, testing waters to find the best market fit, the perks, and limits of ceramics

🔥 ... and of course, we concluded with the 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 🔥

🔗 Check Membrion's Website 

🔗 Send your warmest regards to Greg on LinkedIn 

➡️ Check out the entire article on Membrion's path, including a teaser, an infographic and a full transcript on the (don't) Waste Water website!

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Water stewardship is about managing water resources sustainably and equitably for all stakeholders. This involves setting standards, measuring impact, and encouraging companies to adopt best practices for water use, aiming to create a positive impact on local communities and the environment.

Water stewardship is the management of water resources in a sustainable and equitable manner, considering the needs of all stakeholders involved. Lauren Enright from SCS Global Services explains that this concept has evolved over the past decade, expanding from traditional water management to include broader social and environmental impacts. To promote effective water stewardship, standards like SCS 116 have been developed, aiming to provide a structured approach for companies to measure, report, and improve their water use practices.

The conversation highlights the importance of setting quantifiable standards for water stewardship, similar to ESG standards, to ensure that companies can objectively measure their impact and make informed decisions. The challenge lies in determining whether these standards should be voluntary or mandatory, and how they can be effectively implemented and scrutinized.

Lauren emphasizes the role of accurate reporting and measurement in water stewardship, noting that companies must integrate water biodiversity into their corporate cultures to achieve meaningful progress. The development of tools and technologies, such as those by Microsoft and Fido AI for leak detection, plays a crucial role in improving water efficiency and reducing non-revenue water losses.

The discussion also touches on the growing investment in water-related initiatives, driven by regulatory requirements and the recognition of financial opportunities. Projections suggest a significant increase in investment in water stewardship, highlighting the need for companies to adopt best practices and make tangible impacts on local communities and ecosystems.

In addition to corporate efforts, educational outreach and public engagement are essential for fostering a broader understanding of water stewardship. Initiatives like Axiom Climate aim to educate and involve the public in addressing water and climate issues, emphasizing the importance of community involvement.

Overall, the conversation underscores the importance of developing and adopting water stewardship standards, leveraging technology and reporting tools, and engaging both corporate and public sectors to achieve sustainable water management practices.

Key Points

1. Water stewardship involves managing water sustainably and equitably.

2. Standards like SCS 116 help quantify and improve water use practices.

3. The challenge is balancing voluntary versus mandatory standards.

4. Accurate reporting and measurement are crucial for progress.

5. Companies must integrate water biodiversity into their cultures.

6. Innovative technologies aid in improving water efficiency.

7. Investment in water stewardship is projected to increase significantly.

8. Effective water stewardship requires both global and local actions.

9. Corporate leaders like Microsoft are setting examples in water management.

10. Educational outreach is vital for public understanding and involvement.

Full Episode: https://dww.show/how-to-end-bullshit-and-measure-your-water-stewardship-commitments-right/

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Greg Newbloom is the Founder and CEO 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.

Marketing guru Louis Grenier has some key advice within his STFO methodology. But whenever he has a chance to rank a number one within his selection, he mentions that you should talk with your customers. And not just talk: engage with them, get to know them beyond any made-up persona, and steal as much as you can from them.

Not stealing like scamming or going out of their offices with some furniture. But stealing, in the sense that you'll let them tell you their real pains and cater your solution to what's really matters to them.

Ok, so much for this hashed-down Marketing 101; where am I heading with that.

Actually, this is something like my 150th interview on this podcast. And I think I never heard anyone else implementing the simple trick Greg has put in place at Membrion and shares today. And yet, it's disarmingly genius!

Every single request you put in on Membrion's website actually goes straight to Greg. Don't spam him right away, but if you enjoy what he shares today, you can probably go tell him directly with Membrion's contact form!

You'll hear in a minute how there's more than this trick. How even Membrion's presence in the Water Sector is actually the result from listening to market voices. And there's a ton of actionable advice in what you'll hear, so I'll let you make up your own minds, but I sense you will want to follow my advice and drop him a message by the end of today's episode!

We actually recorded this episode some months ago - you know, I'm still a one-man-band, so sometimes production times are a bit longer; sorry for that, but I may have big news soon. The reason I mention it is that Membrion closed a Series B early this year for $7 million, and you might be surprised I didn't raise the question in the interview. But don't worry, I raise many others, including one that really puzzles me that comes even after the rapid-fire questions.

I'll let you discover all of that, and remember, if you like what you hear, please take this episode and share it around you with a friend, a colleague, or an aspiring water entrepreneur that would praise some incredibly actionable advice and I'll meet you on the other side!

Membrion's CEO That Raised $22M Reveals His One Trick You MUST Copy Today

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with 🎙️ Reinhard Hübner, CEO of SKion Water, 2021's Water Company of the Year 

💧 SKion Water is an international water technology platform, that aims to empower water technology companies to make a difference. 

What we covered: 

📈 How SKion Water was built from scratch in a decade, to reach about 750 M€ yearly turnover  

🛣️ How building a successful water company all starts with choosing your path (and what the options are)  

🤑 How cheap money comes with drawbacks and how this can be problematic for water entrepreneurs 

🤪 How water market capitalizations totally go through the roof these days (and what to think about it) 

☠️ How there's no magical way to skip steps and how it is dangerous to even try 

💧 How the water industry is segmented, and how important it is to target the right section of the food chain 

🤯 How it might be tempting to see yourself as much more clever than everyone before, and how that can lead to terrible mistakes as a water entrepreneur 

🌳 How trees don't grow up to the sky, and how being reasonable on your business expectations is the best way to really deliver 

🤝 How it might be tempting to see tremendous synergies between various branches of the water industry... and how those rarely (if ever) exist 

🍏 How what matters at the end of the day is less the plan than the way you execute it (and how you might have to go in the trenches) 

🧱 All in all, how Reinhard built the 2021 "Water Company of the Year" 

💧  How Reinhart almost fell into investing by accident 

🍏 The two reasons why one would want to invest in Water (despite all the challenges) 

🍎 How SKion's success was born in early, rapid, and spectacular failures 

🍏 How the focus is not to acquire companies but to serve the real customer needs (and the foolproof trick to always keep that market pulse) 

👝 How the Water Sector's structure is quite unique in terms of company sizes and how a certain one doesn't exist at all 

💰 What's the best way to invest in water companies and why 

🧍 Who are the best water entrepreneur profiles, why, and how they have to take risks 

💸 Water Industry's consolidation frenzy, too much money potentially killing companies, crazy valuations, learning from history, giving atypical companies a chance... and much more! 

🔥 ... and of course, we concluded with the 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 🔥 

➡️ Get the Full Story   

➡️ Come say hi to Reinhard on LinkedIn 

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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.

What we covered:

🚜 How Water's Rethink needs to happen at the Energy-Water-Food nexus level - and why 

🤝 How this caters perfectly to the private sector's abilities 

🌎 How many countries in the World trust the private sector to manage water - and how the US may get inspired to follow the track  

🏭 How when you do a water mass balance, you rapidly understand why the right focus is on industrial water 

📣 How looking at sustainable water and best value for money inevitably leads to distributed and water fit-for-purpose approaches 

💰 How industrial water is the perfect example of a potential private-private partnership leading to win-wins 

🧑‍💼 Getting capital to work, Finding the best know-how, understanding the value of water in each context, striving for impact, facilitating change... and more!

🔥 ... and of course, we concluded with the 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 🔥

➡️ The 104 pages cartoon on the Water Crisis in America   

➡️ Send your warm regards to Damian on LinkedIn. 

➡️ Check out Womble Bond Dickinson's website 

➡️ A big THANK YOU to Sciens Water for enabling this episode!

➡️ Check out the entire article on why industrial water is the real deal , including teasers and a full transcript on the (don't) Waste Water website!

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