Meet the IDA Industry Advisory Committee

NAVIGATING INDUSTRIAL WATER RISK: MEET THE IDA INDUSTRY ADVISORY COMMITTEE

Without water, many companies and the products they provide would fail to exist. Water use is fundamental for industry and whether it's ultrapure water for the electronics and pharmaceutical sectors, or softened water for boiler feed applications, water is necessary and comes embedded in the footprint of virtually every product or commodity created on the planet. Corporate water users are being forced to take notice of water. Concerns about operational risks, branding and commitment to corporate social responsibility, and direct impacts on P&L has made water a boardroom issue for the majority of large companies. To put it into perspective, industry accounts for around 20% of total water withdrawals. With increasing urbanization & industrial growth, water consumption grows at a faster rate than the world’s population. Moreover, demand is shifting to regions with already scarce resources, and water scarcity and quality of water available are the most significant drivers of water risk in industry today ...Risk relating to the sufficient availability and quality of source water as well as risk associated with the discharge of waste water. Water scarcity also drives the phenomenon of less water being available for dilution / safe discharge into the environment. This has led to regulations demanding lower volumes of discharge as well as higher quality of wastewater that can be discharged. There are very few places in the world today where polluters can pollute with impunity. These input / output water risks have led to two of the fastest growing segments in the global water industry today, industrial water reuse and desalination. With improving technology industry has increasingly utilized its waste water through recycling to solve its water scarcity challenges. Recycling waste water is not always enough and industrials must also look to the sea to solve their water source issues. Surrounding these two fundamental areas are many interesting niches and subplots, such as: ʞ Zero liquid discharge – when water is recycled, a very concentrated stream is generated that normally is too contaminated for conventional discharge. This stream is evaporated to a solid waste and hence, no water is discharged ʞ Resource recovery -When the solid waste salt is generated, why throw it away? The technology exists to purify this salt and recover useful minerals ʞ Produced water management – Did you know the oil and gas industry actually generates more water than it does oil?? Produced water is water that is produced as a byproduct (from the ground) during the extraction oil and gas On top of the water availability and wastewater disposal challenges, the Industry is also moving towards more sustainable solutions and the concept of doing “more with less” while meeting ambitious sustainability goals is becoming the new reality.

The IDA has a strong commitment to help navigate these challenges. In this regard, an industry advisory board has been formed that that, through an increased engagement with the industrial sector, will help progress our goal of becoming the platform of reference to help water users overcoming the current water related challenges. The IDA’s strives to be a resource for industry offering access to education, technology, best practices, and networking. In parallel, the organization aims at further enabling top research institutions to share with the industry their key innovations. Some of the activities on the agenda include outreach and engagement with the mining, O&G, F&B, and consumer products industries including an in depth roundtable on addressing water reuse for tailings ponds in the mining industry during the waste water reuse conference in Rome at the end of September. Stay tuned for more industrial programming throughout 2020/2021.

IDA Industry Advisory Panel Co-Chairs

Mr. Devesh Sharma First Vice President, IDA Managing Director, Aquatech USA

Mr. Robert Owens Business Development Operations Manager Bechtel Chile

Ms. Veronica Garcia Molina Municipal Water & Desalination DuPont Water Solutions Switzerland

Dr. Hubert Fleming Consultant, Strategic / Sustainability Management USA

“As the global public sector has already done, the private sector is embracing non-conventional water resources. As competition for freshwater resources intensifies, desalination and water reuse become very significant for a number of industries. This is a key frontier for IDA, serving as a resource to industry about water policy, economics, and technology solutions.”

- The Co-Chairs of the IDA Industrial Advisory Committee.