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Utilities Tech Outlook | Tuesday, September 12, 2023
Treatment for industrial businesses offers a means to capitalize on value by eliminating most waste material on-site at the point of use. This can reduce greenhouse gas output by up to 90 percent, and cleaning the water at the point of origin can be repurposed on-site for uses like cooling towers, boilers, and washing.
FREMONT, CA: Climate and water are inseparably intertwined. Water plays a major role in how climate change manifests itself, with extreme weather events becoming more frequent and severe. The West of the United States is becoming drier, there are droughts in Europe that haven't occurred in 500 years, heat waves are disrupting supplies in China and Europe, and Pakistan has had record floods that have covered a third of the nation.
We aren't ready for the significant changes that are taking place, which will strain our already overworked infrastructure and water supply and treatment systems. As we are compelled to adjust to this new reality, decentralized wastewater treatment is one method that might be helpful. Smaller, decentralized systems can be added to or used in place of larger, centralized treatment facilities to offer more cost-effective sanitation and water in rural regions while relieving stress and incorporating redundancy into existing infrastructure.
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Water and wastewater utilities are responsible for 5 percent of the world's greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, of which wastewater treatment is responsible for 70 percent. Eighty percent of untreated wastewater dumped into the environment is not even considered. According to a study, as we use traditional ways to reduce the sanitation gap, the sector's GHG emissions will likely rise by 10 percent. While doing all this, GHG emissions must be cut by 45 percent from 2005 levels by 2030 and reach zero by 2050. Due to their significant emissions and consumption, corporations have a considerable impact on both climate change and water issues. Most significant businesses are improving their environmental performance after realizing the value of reducing GHG and water use for their main business. Over 1,000 businesses have strategies to achieve net-zero GHG emissions, including plans for Scope 3 emissions (those brought on by using products and supply networks). Leaders in this field integrate it into every facet of corporate strategy because they understand that a good business depends on a healthy environment.
Instead of making goals, CEOs must focus on actually accomplishing them. Over 400 C-level executives in a study were found to lack a comprehensive understanding of climate change's financial risks and opportunities. In addition, 54 percent of them did not allocate resources based on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations. Additionally, wastewater is seldom discussed in the C-suite regarding climate change, and most firms' ESG policies ignore the potential value of wastewater. Companies are instead releasing sludge to downstream utilities, landfilling, or incinerating the sludge even though wastewater contains enough energy potential for its treatment to be carbon-neutral. Instead, they have invested in the technology to harness this. Most aerobic systems, which pump air into the wastewater before it is released to the sewer, need a lot of energy, and produce a lot of sludge, are used in centralized wastewater treatment. Landfilling the sludge produces methane, a greenhouse gas (GHG) 84 times more powerful than carbon dioxide.
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