The Water Council

As we celebrate The Water Council's 15th anniversary, Dean Amhaus, our founding president and CEO, reflects on our history, major milestones and future. Check out our blog for more on our impact over 15 years as the hub Where Water Works: https://lnkd.in/gr5NHTT2 #WhereWaterWorks #WorldWaterHub #WaterTechnology #WaterStewardship A. O. Smith Corporation Badger Meter Greater Milwaukee Committee MMAC Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation

At The Water Council, we support #WaterTechnology startups from all over the world, but we have a special place in our heart for #Milwaukee entrepreneurs. Urban Milwaukee recently featured three of our Milwaukee member startups who all participated in the early days of our BREW Accelerator. We're so proud of all that Rapid Radicals Technology, Inc., Wellntel, Inc. and P4 Infrastructure, Inc have accomplished and excited to see what's in store for them! This article was part of Reflo, Inc.'s Milwaukee Water Stories project, funded by the Wisconsin Department of Administration, Wisconsin Coastal Management Program and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Click here for the full series and other goodies, including videos, coloring pages and a comic book! https://lnkd.in/gCj5Gg2u

Is improving your organization's water stewardship one of your New Year's resolutions? The Water Council can help with that! Companies of all sizes and industries are assessing their water use, impacts and risks and prioritizing water stewardship action through our WAVE: Water Stewardship Verified program. We're holding a webinar on Jan. 27 featuring our independent verification partner, SCS Global Services and Clearwater Paper Corporation which recently became WAVE Verified, to help organizations learn more about WAVE. Click here to register: https://ow.ly/mxfc50UuBTq In 2024, we welcomed Clearwater Paper, Milo's Tea Company, Inc., Rockwell Automation and Zurn Elkay Water Solutions as new participants in WAVE. Clearwater Paper, Ecolab, KPMG US and Primo Brands all became WAVE Verified in 2024, and Watts Water Technologies became the first company to be re-verified. Congratulations on taking this important step on your #WaterStewardship journey!

Happy New Year to our followers around the world! In 2025, we plan to keep spreading the message about the importance of #WaterTechnology and #WaterStewardship across the globe, just as we did in 2024. Over the past year, our European representative, Beverley Ferrara, represented us at events in Ireland, Spain, Germany and more. She also worked with our 24 overseas members and with U.S. members looking for help exporting their products to Europe. We also continued our partnership with Phuket, Thailand, as part of the U.S. Water Partnership’s Water Smart Engagements program, funded by the U.S. State Department. CEO Dean Amhaus and our communications director, Stacy Vogel Davis, visited Phuket to meet with water officials there about challenges they face. We were shocked to see the low reservoir levels as the rainy season that was supposed to have started weeks ago hadn’t yet arrived. Afterward, we traveled with two Phuket representatives to Singapore International Water Week (SIWW). #YearInReview

In 2024, The Water Council celebrated its 15th anniversary. In this video, Dean Amhaus, our founding president and CEO, reflects on our history, major milestones and future. In 15 years, The Water Council has had a major impact on solving global water challenges through innovation and stewardship. For example: 💧More than 70 startups have benefited from our training, resources and connections through our BREW and BREW 2.0 accelerators. 💧We have facilitated 19 pilot tests of water technology in Wisconsin through more than $850,000 in pilot awards. 💧We have awarded $180,000 in funding to 18 innovators from 9 countries through our Tech Challenge in addition to helping major water technology companies discover new solutions worldwide. 💧We have partnered with 31 water technology organizations and clusters around the world, helping foster international cooperation and connecting Milwaukee and the U.S. to the global water technology ecosystem. 💧More than 2,000 sites are operating with an improved understanding of their water uses, impacts and risks through our work with the Alliance for Water Stewardship and our WAVE: Water Stewardship Verified program. 💧We have reached 344 organizations through our water stewardship advisory services, including our work with Suppliers Partnership for the Environment and the American Chemistry Council. 💧We developed the world’s first enterprise-wide water stewardship verification scheme, the first water stewardship professional credentialing system and, in partnership with the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, the first graduate-level course in applied water stewardship practices.

In 2024, The Water Council and Marquette Business hosted our first-ever Nexus Sustainability Leaders Summit. This event built on our long-time Water Leaders Summit and Marquette’s Sustainability 2.0 Conference. The event was a success, with strong attendance (a 50 percent increase over last year’s Water Leaders Summit), engaging speakers, and lots of discussion and new connections made in the audience. We learned a lot with the first combined event and expect to come back better than ever next year -- stay tuned for details! Photos by Kevin McIntosh #NexusSummit

Progress continued in 2024 on our Water + Energy Forward Engine, an initiative through the National Science Foundation (NSF). Although we learned in October that we won’t receive a launch award that would have helped fund the engine in future years, many positives came out of this two-year process, including: ⭐Launch of the Water & Wastewater Workforce Center, a collaboration between Veolia North America and The Water Council that will help address urgent workforce needs in the water sector. ⭐Announcement from the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District of a $13 million permanent pilot facility to help companies test emerging water technologies. The Water Council will continue to work closely with MMSD as it finalizes designs for the facility and seeks pilot projects. ⭐New or strengthened partnerships with many organizations, including Microsoft, Rockwell Automation, Water Environment Federation, MKE Tech Hub Coalition, Wisconsin Technology Council, University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Marquette University, Center for Dairy Research, Wisconsin Center for Manufacturing and Productivity (WCMP), City of Racine & Madison Region Economic Partnership. ⭐Insight into persistent problems in the water and energy sector, including workforce development and water and energy resiliency for small businesses, and potential solutions, such as circular watershed economies. The Water Council and our other engine leaders plan to keep the momentum going on key initiatives that grew out of this work. Visit weforward.org to learn more about this effort.

Continuing our #YearInReview, it was another outstanding year for our BREW 2.0 Post-Accelerator. The eight companies in the 2024 cohort hail from from the U.S., Canada, France and Ireland in areas such as artificial intelligence for water utilities, nutrient-harvesting from algae and water-saving devices. GKinetic Energy Ltd of Ireland, which provides clean energy generation from manmade and natural waterways, announced plans in fall to launch its U.S. operations from The Water Council’s headquarters at the Global Water Center. Startups have until Jan. 3 to apply to our 2025 BREW cohort. Late-stage startups that are market-ready or in-market with early sales are encouraged to apply. We are grateful to our BREW sponsors Xylem and Beckhoff Automation as well as our programming partner Thales Water Advisors. Visit thewatercouncil.com/BREW to learn more. Avivid Water Technology LLC CANN Forecast Diamidex Gross-Wen Technologies Kadeya Shower Stream SmartD Technologies #WaterTechnology

There's no place like home for the holidays! Whether your home is in the #WorldWaterHub of #Milwaukee or anywhere around the world, The Water Council wishes you happy holidays and a wonderful New Year.

As the year draws to a close, we're looking back at some of our highlights from 2024. This fall, The Water Council was awarded a Regional Innovation Cluster award from the U.S. Small Business Administration as a mature water technology cluster. This five-year, $2.5 million contract is one of just 14 awarded this year and the only one focused on water. Through this award, we will build on our long-established innovation platform by offering increased support for U.S. water technology businesses from early-stage startups to established small and medium-sized enterprises. We also have a keen interest in assisting foreign companies that are seeking to establish operations in the U.S. This includes enhanced offerings in our BREW 2.0 Post-Accelerator, matchmaking and training, customized support and resources for small businesses, capacity-building and providing access to new market resources. We are also growing our staff and updating our website to support this work. Stay tuned in early 2025 for more! #YearinReview #WaterTechnology #SmallBusiness #WhereWaterWorks #WorldWaterHub