Water as a Driver for Economic Growth with WEF’s John Ikeda
“Water can be a driver for economic growth and financial security in America.”
John Ikeda is chief mission officer at the Water Environment Federation. Ahead of The Water Council’s ReFRESH Summit, he spoke with waterloop founder Travis Loop about WEF’s strategic priorities, the growing intersection of water and artificial intelligence, and what it will take to advance a circular water economy.
John will speak as part of ReFRESH’s kickoff panel on Oct. 13 alongside Pauli Undesser, CEO of the Water Quality Association, and David LaFrance, CEO of the American Water Works Association. Register today!
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
What does your role as chief mission officer at the Water Environment Federation involve?
As Chief Mission Officer, I’m responsible for our portfolio of educational programming, our technical publications and the implementation of our strategy. Ultimately, it’s about making sure that everything WEF does delivers on our mission: to inspire the water community in pursuit of human and environmental well-being.
What are WEF’s major strategic priorities?
At the high level, we have three strategic goals. The first is around workforce development: Get people into water. Create that bridge, create those opportunities and those entry points, and make sure people are paired up with employers. Then help people get the skills, experience and connections they need to thrive throughout their entire career in water.
The second is around building a community. Once we’ve got people in the water sector, we want to connect them and be that hub where people can gather, learn, share information and develop business opportunities. WEFTEC is our most visible platform for creating that connection in the water sector. But through our other events, our online platform and all the work we do, we’re trying to connect and inspire the water community.
The third is to advance the circular water economy. You’ve got great people coming together to talk about water, share and really brainstorm: How do we create a water sector that responds to all of these pressing challenges that we have?
Cutting across all of these are both our global perspective and AI. On the global side, we have 75 member associations. How do we create those connections with the rest of the world? There’s so much around the circular water economy happening in places like Denmark, Singapore and Japan. How do we bring the best of that knowledge back? And how do we create opportunities for the U.S. and Canada to share our perspectives with the global water community as well?
When we started the strategy, AI was in a very different place. We pivoted in real time and said this is something where we need to think about how WEF can really lead. That’s not just around the sustainable footprint of water with data centers and semiconductor manufacturing, but equally, if not more important: How do we ensure that AI is channeled toward helping solve all of these incredibly pressing challenges? It’s an amazing tool. It’s been used in some ways in the water sector for quite some time, but there’s so much more that can be done, particularly around generative AI and agentic AI.
How is WEF approaching the relationship between AI and water?
All of our different technical communities are looking into different aspects of AI. I’m very excited for an upcoming technical publication we have on data centers and water utilities: how to create that relationship and the technical aspects of having a large industrial customer like that.
The most exciting thing we’ve launched recently is the Water-AI Nexus, which is a partnership across the entire water community as well as the AI community to start bringing those two sides together. What we saw was that there wasn’t a lot of discussion happening. There weren’t a lot of connections. That Venn diagram had very little overlap.
Initially, this was a partnership founded between WEF, the University of Pennsylvania’s Water Center, the Leading Utilities of the World group and Amazon. It has since grown to represent over 18 organizations, including water-sector associations, other technology companies, leading engineering firms and leading consultancies. It’s really about creating that place where the AI side and the water side can connect, brainstorm solutions and identify a productive path forward.
At WEFTEC last year, we launched our first insight report around the sustainable use of water at data centers. It called for more use of water-efficient technologies, more reuse for cooling and, most importantly of all, proactive community engagement.
I think what we’re seeing with a lot of the backlash against data centers is that much of it was driven by the nondisclosure agreements many of the hyperscalers were using, which they have since walked back. What we found is that in communities where they were clear, transparent and engaging with the community up front — and working with the utility to understand the community’s needs, the utility’s needs, how they can be a responsible corporate steward and how they can support the growth of the utility and the community — it has been a really productive relationship. That’s something we’re trying to support through WEF and the Water-AI Nexus.
Why is the ReFRESH Summit an important place for this conversation?
The Water Council is doing really fascinating work, particularly as we think about all the challenges we have around the circular water economy.
The circular water economy is not largely a technological problem. It’s one of collaboration. It’s about getting the financing right, the policy, the regulation, and even things like procurement and workforce development—making sure we have the right workforce to manage this.
What groups like The Water Council and other regional hubs are doing is bringing together business, utilities and all the different stakeholders to have those discussions: How do you create that vision for a more sustainable water sector and then catalyze those partnerships to make that happen?
Particularly in the Upper Midwest — and I am possibly biased as a Minnesota boy — the freshwater resources in that part of the United States are unparalleled. It is a tremendous engine for economic development.
If you could create a hub for advanced AI development, the knock-on effects of that are massive. It’s about showing that water is not a constraint. Water is not a thing to be fought over. Water can be a driver for economic growth and financial security in America. I think that’s incredibly important, and that’s one of the things The Water Council is really helping do.