Insights

A brave new world of water

Most people in the water industry will probably not recognise the name Craig Venter, but I am very excited that we have been able to secure him to speak at the Global Water Summit in Rome on 30th April. He is not a retired statesman or a water industry leader. He is a geneticist. And then some. He is the ...

What happened to municipal water reuse?

Three years ago, in 2009, we published our Municipal Water Reuse Markets report in collaboration with Singapore’s PUB. It was a big undertaking – we collected information on around 5,000 water reuse projects around the world, and investigated the outlook for the technology in 23 global markets in a 446-page document. The conclusion was that although reuse was a ...

The water sector and the Bengal famine of 1943

Are we seeing the current water challenges correctly? It is a question raised by a paper published this week by Aquafed’s Gérard Payen (you can find the link at www.aquafed.org). In the paper, he suggests that the world’s drinking water deficit is dramatically larger than the progress towards the Millennium Development Goal for water might ...

Asset owners beat the French in 2011. What’s next?

We have been working on our 2011 stock performance review for this month’s magazine. It does not make a pretty picture. 2011 was a bad year for all stocks, but certain water companies were hammered more heavily than the market in general. Specifically, the two biggest water companies in the world, Suez Environnement and Veolia Environnement, fell by 42 ...

The importance of consultative tariff-setting

I was in the Philippines last week, and was invited to attend the 4th National Conference of Small Scale Water Service Providers, held amongst the aquariums of Manila Ocean Park. At a session on customer service codes for small operators, a representative from a provincial water cooperative stood up and related a story about a man who had joined their ...

Saudi Arabia thinks big on wastewater privatisation

I was in Saudi Arabia this weekend for the long-awaited launch of the first phase of the Jeddah wastewater system. The project will see 52,000 people connected to a wastewater treatment network in the notorious sewerage black spot, rising to 132,000 in the next three years.

Officially opened by Prince Khaled Al-Faisal, the governor of the Mecca province ...