Botanical Water Technologies (BWT) is a company that aims to address the global water crisis. Their primary goal is to recover water that is typically wasted during the concentration process of fruits and vegetables, a problem that accounts for an estimated 3 trillion liters of wasted water annually. They have their own technology to capture and purify wasted water, making it drinkable. Their systems, made of Water Harvesting Units (WHUs), turn any juice concentration facility, or sugar mill into a sustainable potable new water source. While their technology is impressive, challenges have emerged, particularly regarding the distribution of water. Through different initiatives such as directly selling the water to manufacturers, gifting it to people in need, or allowing multinationals to “offset” their water usage and achieve their sustainability goals to buy water credits, BWT found ways to use their purified wasted water.
However, a second problem came, namely, how to trade this water? That’s where the idea of a global water trading platform was born. And to track the whole process, what technology is better than blockchain? Indeed, the team started by exploring different solutions. What about a simple and traditional database? Well, according to the team: “That doesn’t give all the benefits you want,” says De Breuck. “You want to make absolutely sure everyone is looking at the same data. You need to bring trust to an untrusted situation. You also want to remove some of the normal operational frictions.” Therefore, to address these issues, BWT has created, in collaboration with Fujitsu, the Botanical Water Exchange (BWX), a groundbreaking platform that leverages Hyperledger Fabric blockchain technology to manage water resources more efficiently.
Benefits of using blockchain technology:
To foster trust, transparency is a must. The platform must be able to provide a single source of truth that is easily accessible by all parties. Blockchain’s transparency and traceability allow them to track where the water comes from and where it is going. Blockchain can also very easily help them certify their water credits sold to companies as information is immutable and simplifies a lot of the auditing process, which leads to cost reductions.
To do so, they decided to use a permissioned blockchain based on Hyperledger Fabric. According to BWT, using Hyperledger Fabric “can solve complex business problems using all the benefits of blockchain technology, so you know exactly who does what, when, and why“.
By creating the world’s first global water trading platform, BWX not only recovers this wasted water but also tracks, traces, and certifies every transaction. This ensures the utmost transparency and security in the distribution of this essential resource. As every certificate purchased via the BWX platform is bonded to a unique unit of water that comes from certified sustainable water sources, it means that for every gallon of water consumed, companies can generate a gallon of sustainable water to balance demand and achieve true water sustainability.
Overall, the platform supports three main transactions:
- Sales of actual water for food, beverage and other manufacturers
- Sales of WICs to help fulfill corporate water stewardship goals
- Bulk donations of water to the world’s most vulnerable people
Below is an illustration of how the platform works:
Image source: Hyperledger’s website
The platform also has a Sustainable Water Impact Maps (SWIM), which is “an interactive global mapping software which helps users identify new water sources and potential end uses. It provides the flexibility and simplicity for corporates to explore and analyse global water basins with various overlay mapping tools to assist with water stewardship and ESG reporting.”
Image source: Botanical Water Technologies’ website
WHY IS WATER RECOVERY IMPORTANT?
Nowadays, about four billion people experience severe water scarcity during at least one month of the year. The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030 recognize the urgency of addressing this water scarcity. For that matter, the focus on the conservation of water sources, and the reduction of water consumption at production facilities is growing. That is the reason why BWT and Fujistsu have partnered: to provide clean drinking water to everybody.
In terms of results, a standard Water Harvesting Unit (WHU) deployed by BWT can harvest approximately 460,000 liters or 122,000 gallons of water per day. When fully operational, the technology has the potential to generate up to 3 trillion liters of potable water each year from over 10,000 processors.
In summary, Botanical Water Technologies is a transformative solution that aims to redefine the way we manage and distribute water globally, offering a sustainable, secure, and efficient approach to tackling water scarcity. As for their vision of the future, they hope to have real-time data on the water harvested and delivered, as well as the impact this water had on people.