A Season of Transition
By Dean Amhaus, President & CEO
As fall is a time of transition, so too is The Water Council transitioning in our work as we plan for 2025 and beyond. We just wrapped up our first Nexus Sustainability Leaders Summit with much positive feedback, and now we turn our attention to ramping up our small business offerings through our Regional Innovation Cluster Award from the U.S. Small Business Administration. Read more about both of those initiatives below.
We also learned recently that our Water + Energy Forward Engine will not be moving on through the National Science Foundation Regional Innovation Engine program. However, our engine leaders believe there is great value in continuing to pursue the strongest elements of the engine, including workforce development, modeling a circular watershed economy, and solving water challenges for small and medium-sized manufacturers and utilities.
At the same time, we are more focused than ever on our mission of solving global water challenges by driving freshwater innovation and advancing water stewardship.
Fall is also a time for gratitude, and I wish to thank all our members, directors, partners and supporters for helping us achieve our mission.
nexus summit
The end of October marked the first-ever Nexus Sustainability Leaders Summit, which was held in partnership with the Marquette University College of Business Sustainability Lab. The panelists discussed a wide variety of topics, including the energy transition, breaking the bottlenecks of innovation, the role of artificial intelligence in modern energy and water infrastructure, building climate resilience and sustainable financing.
We also continued our tradition of small-group roundtables on the first day, discussing ways to speed up water and energy innovations. After the discussions, we collected the table notes and gave them to Balamurugan Balakreshnan, an AI expert with Microsoft and one of our summit speakers. He used AI to create a discussion summary that you can find on our website, along with a fuller recap of the event.
small business channel
As I noted above, we are diving right into our Regional Innovation Cluster work for small water technology businesses. We are in the process of hiring an innovation programs director who will help us enhance and expand our BREW 2.0 Post-Accelerator, Tech Challenge and Pilot Program. We are planning a kickoff event for early 2025 to explain more of what this award means for members and small businesses, so stay tuned for more details.
We are thrilled that this cluster will help support our European representative, Beverley Ferrara. Beverley helps connect our U.S. members with overseas markets and vice versa. She recently spoke at the Invest Northern Ireland Sustainable Water Connect event, joined by colleagues from Uisce Eireann (formerly Irish Water) and British Water. Learn more in her latest “View from Europe” blog post. Beverley is also representing us this week at the Ireland Water & Wastewater Expo.
Through this grant, we are hiring a spring communications intern to help us tell the story of our water technology cluster. The application deadline is Dec. 1.
innovation update
BREW 2.0 applications are open until Jan. 3!
BREW 2.0 is a next-stage post-accelerator created to help young companies worldwide build connections and grow their capacity. Previous participants have found significant value and opportunities from the program, cultivating connections with peers, customers and investors from around the world.
water stewardship
BlueTriton Brands is the latest company to become verified through our WAVE: Water Stewardship Verified program. BlueTriton recently merged with Primo Water Corporation, another company participating in WAVE, and is now known as Primo Brands Corporation.
Meanwhile, Watts Water Technologies has become the first company to be re-verified through WAVE. Watts was a pilot tester of the program and has been a strong supporter of our water stewardship efforts.
“Our customers rely on Watts Water Technologies to provide products and services that promote Safety and Regulation, Water Conservation and Energy Efficiency. WAVE facilitates best practices in water stewardship as we strive to be responsible community members and lead by example.”
-Robert J. Pagano Jr., president & CEO, Watts Water Technologies
Another WAVE verified company, A. O. Smith Corporation, recently took the significant step of announcing its first public water goal: annual savings of 40 million gallons by 2030. We are proud to see our WAVE companies leading the way in the realm of corporate water stewardship. Click here to read a case study of A. O. Smith’s WAVE participation.
Our vice president of water stewardship, Matt Howard, is staying busy raising awareness about WAVE and the importance of water stewardship. He recently spoke at a dinner for Rexel USA, a global leader in the distribution of electrical supplies and services that is now expanding into more water-related services. The dinner included key U.S.-based Rexel clients and partners with an interest in addressing water risk issues in the industrial sector.
Matt is also speaking this week at the Rockwell Automation Fair. Rockwell is a close partner of The Water Council on water stewardship and water technology issues.
new members
This month, we welcome Jacobs as our newest member of The Water Council. Jacobs provides end-to-end services in advanced manufacturing, cities and places, energy, environmental, life sciences, transportation and water. Welcome to the hub Where Water Works!
member news & opportunities
- News: A. O. Smith Corporation acquires Pureit.
- News: Grundfos teams up with Houston Astros to support access to clean water.
- News: Mke Tech Hub Coalition’s founding CEO, Kathy Henrich, will retire by spring 2025.
- News: Jacobs selected to design and build LA groundwater replenishment project.
- News: Ecolab acquires Barclay Water Management.
- Jobs: The Nature Conservancy seeks a Wisconsin Conservation Lead.
- Opportunities: The Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation is organizing a trade mission to Mexico, taking place Feb. 23-28; register by Nov. 29.
- Opportunities: STEM Forward seeks judges for the essay and team portions of the Future City Competition in Wisconsin.
- Opportunities: Milwaukee Waters Investigation is seeking volunteers and sponsors for its event May 13, 2025.
- Event: British Water is holding a webinar, “The UK Water Market Explained,” on Nov. 28. Members, contact Laura Mullen for a registration discount code.
- Event: The U.S. Commercial Service is holding its next U.S. Environmental Technologies Market Intelligence Webinar on India on Dec. 4.
- Event: The Water & Wastewater Equipment, Treatment & Transport Show, the world’s largest annual trade show for wastewater and environmental service professionals, is Feb. 17-20 in Indianapolis.