At the White House Water Summit in Washington, DC on World Water Day, the American Water Works Association (AWWA) announced a challenge to its member water utilities and others across the globe to complete 1,000 water audits over the next two years using AWWA’s newest Water Audit Software. Water audits allow utilities to become more efficient by showing how much water is lost through leaking distribution pipes and highlighting other potential concerns, such as faulty meters or billing problems.
Denmark, which is renowned for its green initiatives and Danish water technology that is used throughout the world was also on display. To demonstrate key solutions at the summit, a consortium of 12 leading Danish water technology companies, consultants and interest groups, including Danfoss, created a LEGO city using 20,000 LEGO bricks and shipped it to Washington, DC. Danfoss provided engineering and variable-speed drive technologies to support the Danish solutions highlighted in the city. Denmark was the only country outside the US invited to share its successful experience in water management.
Understanding the scope of water loss within a water system sets the stage for introducing innovative and creative solutions. GE and American Water announced they have formed a new digital initiative to identify and explore advances in the Industrial Internet of Things to help solve pressing challenges in the water industry and help lead the country toward a smarter water future. The GE-American Water initiative will include the use of GE’s Predix cloud platform built exclusively for industry that powers the Industrial Internet. The companies will collaborate to develop the next generation of software and data analytics solutions to help the industry reduce the environmental impacts and operating costs associated with water production, treatment, transportation and delivery.
The International Desalination Association (IDA) announced its plan to hold an Energy and Environment Symposium in the US in early 2017. The event is expected to bring together approximately 250 leaders in the global desalination and water reuse communities to explore issues and facilitate discussions to shape a path to a sustainable water supply for future generations. IDA will also convene a special meeting of its global Energy and Environment Task Force during the Symposium.
IAPMO Group CEO Russ Chaney was on hand when the White House announced the release of the IAPMO Drought Toolkit, which provides plug-and-play resources to achieving a minimum of 20 percent water savings at no cost to users. IAPMO created it to help local and state jurisdictions find ways to achieve consequential water conservation simply and cost-effectively.
Two initiatives developed by the Alliance for Global Water Adaptation (AGWA) – a network hosted and chaired by the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), were presented: a new water climate bonds standard and the climate adaptation mainstreaming process, Climate Risk Informed Decision Analysis (CRIDA) . The Standard, produced by AGWA, Ceres, the Climate Bonds Initiative, CDP and the World Resources Institute, provides investors with verifiable, science-based criteria for evaluating water-related bonds and assists issuers in the global corporate, municipal, sovereign and supra-sovereign markets in differentiating their green bond offerings.