Latest News

Be part of it: 25.000 international professionals, high level decision makers, innovative showcases and many networking events.

Are you planning an event that deserves the attention of leading water professionals worldwide? Why not organize your event at the Amsterdam International Water Week, where 25.000 international professionals and decision makers gather from 4 to 8 November 2019. Offer the participants of your event the added bonus of an inspiring conference programme, the renowned Aquatech Exhibitions, excursions to ‘Living Lab’ the Netherlands and many social events and networking opportunities

10 reasons to organize your side event at the Amsterdam International Water Week

CEO Global Center on Adaptation (GCA)

During the AIWW Summit Patrick Verkooijen, CEO Global Centre on Adaptation (GCA), mentioned the need for scale up and speed up to meet he challenges on climate adaptation. GCA will work on that, in close collaboration with the AIWW Global Community, and present results at the Climate Adaptation Action Summit in 2020. Finally he announced that the progress on the water related action tracks will be discussed at the AIWW Conference 2019.

>> Read more

AIWW 2019 Call for content:
Forging the future’s value chain

We know the impact of climate change on the water sector pretty well and how necessary it is to move towards the circular economy. Now is the time to match cases and solutions.
That is why the main theme of the Amsterdam International Water Week (AIWW) 2019 Conference is highly topical: ‘Implementation of integrated solutions by cities, industries, utilities and financiers: from cases to bankable projects’.

The call for content is now open. Kees van der Lugt, AIWW’s programme director, challenges the international water world.

>> Read his blog

Video Mark van Loosdrecht

What was once started as lofty ambitions by the European Commission, the ‘Circular Economy’ has become a common phrase in the environmental vocabulary. Although dismissed by critics as a buzzword, or buzz phrase, a Circular Economy model is being adopted by companies and corporations at the highest level. Even Swedish furniture giant Ikea recently announced a furniture rental, upcycling and recycling scheme for businesses, all under the guise of being circular.

>> Read more

‘Sustainable water management should be one of the key driving forces to achieve climate neutrality. Just do it.’

Tomasz Chruszczow, Special Envoy for Climate Change, Poland’s High Level Climate Champion, Ministry of the Environment, Poland kicked off during AIWW Summit 2018.

Find out more by watching the video.

Xavier Leflaive is one of the High Level speakers at the AIWW Summit in Rotterdam, 15 November 2018. During the AIWW Summit, the agenda will be shaped for AIWW 2019. For Xavier Leflaive, his focus point is clear: Valuing water and financing.

Xavier Leflaive: ‘Valuing water is a game changer, which can inspire new and effective ways of financing investments that contribute to water security and sustainable growth.’ His ambition is to ensure that investments in areas like agriculture and urban development contribute to water security, or at least that water is put on the agenda of these communities.

At the OECD Environment Directorate, Xavier Leflaive leads a team of dedicated experts, who focus on water economics: how to manage water in a way it contributes to sustainable growth and equity. Xavier and his team particularly focus on the management of diffuse water pollution and on financing water services and infrastructures. During the AIWW Summit, he will talk about financing capabilities in EU water management. ‘The need to scale up investments in water-related infrastructure and services is not only an issue of developing countries. Developed countries are also struggling to secure funding to renew and upgrade existing assets, to comply with more stringent regulations, to adapt to climate change and to deal with new challenges.’ During the Summit he will make clear that some countries in Europe will have to double (!) the total expenditures on water by 2030.  

Get inspired. Join the discussion.
Xavier will inspire you with his speech about valuing water and financing capabilities.
Vice versa, his ultimate ambition is to contribute to a sound and severe vision to make reform happen. Will you inspire him with your ideas?

Xavier Leflaive will speak during parallel session 2 between 09.55 and 11.45

REGISTER NOW

Chrysoula Papacharalampou was awarded the title of Young Professional Ambassador of AIWW in 2017. She is one of the speakers at the AIWW Summit 2018, dedicated to inspire us about ‘water identities’, which reflect on the human side of the current water issues.

Water identities
Chrysoula: ‘Your water identity is the way a person is shaped by aspects of life they didn’t determine themselves, but which do influence the way we think about water.’ Chrysoula moved from Greece to the UK, had to reshape her thinking about water and had to reshape it again after her move to the Netherlands. ‘People in the Netherlands live with water. It made me aware of the existence of water identities and how this differs per person.’

Whether it’s about religion, culture, economics or just the way a person is raised or educated: all aspects of life shape the way you think about water. When discussing global water security issues, these aspects should be narrowed down and taken into account. Eventually, it will increase the understanding why and how countries are handling their water issues.

Chrysoula about the AIWW Conference
The blend of diverse water related people from industries, national institutions and politicians makes the AIWW Conference a unique event. ‘It’s interesting to have people with different perspectives in the same room. At the same time it’s the most practical way of getting things done’, is Chrysoula’s take-out after attending the AIWW in 2017.

For the AIWW Conference 2019 her focus is water security: ‘It’s an umbrella topic which covers all aspects of life. Crisis, security, government, especially related to climate change. Water identities are a determining factor in creating solutions on this topic’.   

Young Professional Ambassador
As Young Professional Ambassador, Chrysoula is able to create and mobilize a community of young people in order to get things done. ‘Every generation wants to do things differently.
My generation lives in a time where there’s an overload of information. It sometimes is a struggle to narrow it all down. On the other hand, we can also reach out to each other easily. This enables us to collaborate and communicate better and really get things done’.

Chrysoula is originally from Greece. Her father, who worked as a water scientist, took her along to his workplace, where she observed him drilling the waterholes. That’s where her interest in water started. Eventually, the complexity of the sector exited her and made her decide to become a water scientist herself.

Are you also looking forward to listen to this ambitious young lady? She will be interviewed during AIWW Summit 2018 Leadership sessions between 13:00 and 14:15.

On 15 November 2018, Rotterdam is the place where leading international parties take stock. What do we need to accomplish in the year ahead? And how should we tackle that? The AIWW Summit promises to be a highly worthwhile milestone in the run-up to the Amsterdam International Water Week Conference in November 2019. AIWW chair Menno Holterman looks ahead.

‘The AIWW Summit 2018 and the AIWW Conference 2019 stand for the ‘Implementation of integrated solutions for cities, industry, utilities with finance.’ There was substantial enthusiasm for meeting in the year between the two editions of the Amsterdam International Water Week to find out where we stand on each of these themes. What progress has been made on the Amsterdam Agreements signed in 2017 and concerning the concrete solutions that we mutually outlined in Amsterdam? From there, we have to move forward; therefore, we collectively set the agenda for the AIWW Conference in 2019. Of course, resilient cities and the circular economy will also be important themes in Rotterdam, just like water and finance. We want to expand these themes and, where necessary, refine them.

Beyond cities, industry, utilities and finance, we also focus on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for water (goal 6) and climate & partnerships (goal 17). As far as that is concerned, the timing is perfect: it is one of the last high-level water events before COP24, the 24th edition of the United Nations Climate Change Conference. A Polish delegation that is involved with the COP24 will also be in Rotterdam on 15 November. They want to use the summit to gather input on the progress made in the international water sector, they are curious about how the international water community wants to contribute substantively to the first climate summit after the previous edition in Paris.

From vision to action
One of the strengths of the AIWW is that we continuously focus on concrete and practical solutions and the fact that the work has to commence. It is with good reason that the motto for the AIWW Summit is ‘from vision to action’. One splendid example from the recent past is the integrated approach to cities that we launched during the AIWW 2017. Inspired by this effort, more than 44 Polish cities are now collectively working on climate adaptation. The AIWW team is very pleased with such concrete results. It demonstrates not only that our unique approach is valued but also, more importantly, that it is followed by others. At the same time, let me be realistic; this is not just a good news show to make everyone feel good. We also encounter cases that can derail momentum. There are also setbacks, which we will discuss in Rotterdam.

Connecting with major water events
After all, we face enormous challenges that we, as public and private parties, knowledge institutes and the financial sector, can only deal with through unified international cooperation, with continuous attention. Among other things, this is achieved through our chosen design for the AIWW summit, with leader forums for industry, utilities and cities, with finance as a common thread through them all. We have developed a format that responds to the large and rapidly growing need for innovative leadership. And, we can note with due pride that this format has international appeal. The director of the recent Stockholm World Water Week is interested in how we set up the concept of the leaders forum and how we managed to secure those leaders. For example, during the last IWA conference in Tokyo and the most recent edition of the Singapore International Water Week, we organised a city leaders forum in partnership with the NWP and representatives of the Dutch government and the international water sector. We have also been approached for a dialogue with the World Economic Forum.

In doing so, we also succeed at actively forging international connections with other major water events, based on the awareness that we can only solve our challenges by working together. The fact that we stand out internationally is also apparent looking at our programme. We have managed to attract several highly compelling speakers. If you would like to actively engage in implementing pioneering solutions for concrete challenges, come to Rotterdam on 15 November. After all, this is the city for those who like to roll up their sleeves!’

Join us
Want to join the discussion at the AIWW Summit 2018 in Rotterdam? Please register for this landmark event.

There is only a real innovation with implementation. Otherwise you merely have a new idea. Bringing together science and industry is therefore essential. And hereby you must above all be realistic. Mark van Loosdrecht, Professor in Environmental Biotechnology and Water Treatment at Delft University of Technology will in particular focus on this message on 15 November during the AIWW Summit 2018. In August, together with Bruce Rittmann of Arizona State University, he won the prestigious 2018 Stockholm Water Prize for their revolutionary work on improving (waste) water treatment.

‘We are examining how micro-organisms are involved in purifying water and drinking water. Traditionally the focus is always on sludge, and not on the specific organisms in the sludge. Historically water purification is in particular a civil-engineering domain, it never involved much biology. When you develop a better understanding of the biological processes in water purification, you can improve this purification. When you observe new organisms, you can conceive new processes. I regard this prize, which is more or less the most important prize in the international water world, as a token of appreciation for this search.

Such a search, from idea to application, costs time and money. When you see opportunities, you must share your enthusiasm with persons who want to implement an idea, who want to take the lead and who want to include colleagues in their organisation. You must carry out pilots for many years and show that everything remains stable. In a reactor in the lab you can prove the basic principles, but then everything has to be adapted to the actual situation and the actual scale. The first patent for a membrane bioreactor dates from 1967, but it was only in 2000 that the first reactors operated on domestic waste water. With an innovation such as Nereda it ultimately took about ten years before purifications were carried out on a large scale, and it was not possible to do this much faster.

The message I want to convey during the Amsterdam International Water Week (AIWW) Summit 2018 in Rotterdam on 15 November is that there should be a greater focus on innovation and bringing inventions and implementation together: assessing with each other where the bottlenecks are and how you can think of solutions in this respect.

For innovation I apply the definition of Schumpeter: You only have innovation when there is implementation, when it is applied in practice. Otherwise you only have something new. Sometimes there is a very interesting study, a challenging perspective. For example, phosphate: everyone thinks that its recovery is important, plants are being built. However, what is recovered is often not real phosphate yet. You have gold, but it is still in the ore. In wastewater treatment it is actually mainly used for maintenance and cost reduction. There is not yet a good business case for the recovered material. You may think that it is in the public interest to recover materials, but that is a different matter. You must be honest about that. A better definition of the problem leads to a better solution. There will come a time when the phosphate mines are empty. So you may also decide to build up a strategic reserve by recovering materials. With cellulose the situation is comparable. Upgrading to a high quality is expensive and the fractions are too small for the industry.

Moreover, the perception that a product from waste water is ‘dirty’ does not have to be problematic. The market will know solutions for this. After all, we also eat mushrooms which are cultivated on horse manure. Lagging legislation is usually not the real bottleneck, it is actually the absence of a market. With each novelty you must therefore not only be enthusiastic, but also realistic and raise any intrinsic problems. They must not be suppressed, because otherwise people will not be enthusiastic about your idea. When a certain technology is inherently expensive, you must accept this and examine if there is a solution for this. And when there is no solution, it may not be the expected innovation. Because then you will not reach the phase of implementation.

From a technological viewpoint there are great options to improve wastewater treatment and recover valuable materials. And it is of great importance for society. However, it is also in particular necessary to establish a connection, to get the industry and the market around the table, and make the step towards implementation. We should discuss this with each other in November.’

Join us
Want to join the discussion at the AIWW Summit 2018 in Rotterdam? Please register for this landmark event.