Today we interview Jennifer Loudon on how she’s digitally transforming water.We talk about some of the difficulties surrounding water in our world, her intelligent water services business in the US and what we can all do too make a difference.
Jennifer Loudon is an environmental scientist with 20 years of laboratory experience in wet chemistry, microbiology, molecular biology, ecotoxicology, marine biology, and protein biochemistry. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Marine Sciences and a Master’s degree in Environmental Sciences from Rutgers University in the United States, and is currently pursuing a graduate certificate from Stevens Institute of Technology in Environmental Engineering. Jennifer is an active volunteer in several local and national water-related professional associations.
She has made a life out of being a water nerd. For the past 11 years, Jennifer has been Laboratory Manager at Raritan Township Municipal Utilities Authority in Flemington, New Jersey, U.S.A. In 2018, she was nominated by the Water Environment Federation, and selected by the UNLEASH organization, to be one of 1,000 young professionals from around the world to come together at the UNLEASH Innovation Lab in Singapore to develop and accelerate innovative solutions to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals by partnering with multiple stakeholders that are at the forefront of innovation and global development.
In May of 2020, Ms. Loudon founded a smart water startup, Intelligent Water Services, that offers wastewater treatment utilities an efficient and streamlined way of managing industrial users through a Process-as-a-Service business model coupled with advanced technology. Recently, Jennifer has begun offering services as an independent consultant for other startups. Her areas of expertise include biological and chemical fields of study, as well as grant funding application submissions. Her husband and her rescue dog help keep her sane, and she can be seen dancing around the lab on extra stressful days.
Katherine Ann Byam 0:02
Welcome, Jennifer to our show.
Jennifer Loudon 1:38
Thank you for having me, Katherine. My pleasure to be here.
The historical conflict over the access to safe and clean water.
Katherine Ann Byam 1:41
It's wonderful to have you. So I want to know a little bit about water security. And I know this is such a massive topic. There has been so much global conflict around water that probably people don't even know about. And I'd like you to tell us a bit about what water security really means for us. And some of the history of this topic of water and conflict.
Jennifer Loudon 2:06
Yeah. Disclaimer: I promised I will try not to be a total downer going over this. But yeah, as you mentioned, it really is a very heavy topic. So much so that the United Nations has created an entire Sustainable Development Goal around water and sanitation SDG 6. Water is life. Water and sanitation are two sides of the same coin. And without either of those working to maximum efficiency, we would be lost. Especially right now with COVID kind of shutting down a lot of things throughout the world, water and sanitation is an essential service.
And there's a reason for that. We can't really go in developing countries or in developing nations without either of those services. And unfortunately, one in three people have no access to safe drinking water throughout the world. Either that's because they live in remote areas or places where the water source is polluted. But imagine just going about your day to day activities and not having access to safe drinking water, especially in a pandemic. Two in five people around the world don't have access to soap and water to wash their hands. One of the simplest and most effective ways to combat illness transmission.
And two in five people don't have access to it. On the sanitation side of things, six in ten people don't have access to safe sanitation facilities. That's 2.4 billion people worldwide. That's something here in America we certainly take for granted - being able to go to the sink to wash our hands, being able to go to the bathroom to use the toilet. There are places around the world where again 2.4 billion people do not have access to that.
Think about that for a moment. It's heartbreaking, but it should also be encouraging something that we need to do we need to act on. And that's what prompted again the United Nations SDGs. SDG 6 is pardon the pun, water and sanitation flows through many of the other SDGs that the UN is working on. In a lot of the places where they don't have access to safe drinking water on premises, women and girls are responsible for water collection in 80% of those situations. So that brings in SDG 1 zero poverty, SDG 3 good health and well being, SDG 5 gender inequality, which leads to a problem with SDG 4 quality education because these women and girls should be in school. They should be out living the life but they're spending their entire day collecting water because they don't have that on premises.
On the sanitation side of things, more than 80% of human wastewater is discharged into rivers or seas without any sort of pollution removal, 80% there's open defecation that's happening that we're actively working to stop. And there are issues where the water source that's being used for somebody's drinking water is contaminated either by sewage going into there, or by industrial applications, either in developed nations like here in America, like I'm presuming they're in the UK, or even in developing nations. They are still trying to figure out their industrial processes and all of that contaminated discharge is going into somebody else's drinking water source.
Unknown Speaker 5:46
Oh, that's absolutely true. And I knew that I visited Mexico and there was a lake, one of the biggest lakes in the country. Actually, you can't even go in there. It's so infested with industrial waste, etc. And in India, the main river that everyone uses for everything is also heavily contaminated. You have California and the issues with food and how water is siphoned off to grow almonds which are highly water-consumptive. You know, you have all these stories. You have the battle between India and Pakistan over Kashmir and the flow of water there. You have China, Tibet, Nepal, and all of these areas where there's conflict around water. So this is a huge challenge.
Jennifer Loudon 6:37
Oh, definitely. And here in the United States, Arizona has currently undergone some issues with its legal water rights. You know, there's a doctrine there on “first in time, first in right.” Basically, the first person who puts the water to beneficial use, either for agriculture or for home consumption, whatever has that right. before anybody else does anybody downstream of that.
Taking it a step further, there was a news article that I came across just yesterday, where CME Group is set to launch water futures contracts for the stock market. Because of the water rights in California, particularly farmers, they're going to allow investors and farmers to bet on the future price of water because the California Water market is so tight and so incredibly competitive.
So it's going to be traded on wall street like gold, oil, and other commodities. We are at this level of water scarcity even within the United States, taking that even to a global issue. In the grand Renaissance dam, there's a hydropower electric project in Ethiopia - it's going to be Africa's largest hydropower project which is awesome considering alternatives for energy generation. Again, SDG 13, climate action - it flows through all of them. But the problem is that the Nile River is the main waterway that runs through Uganda, South Sudan, Sudan, Egypt, drainage basins run through East Africa including Ethiopia that is constructing the dam.
The problem is that the tributary that runs across part of the country, Egypt has objected to the construction of the dam. And Sudan has found itself called in the middle between Egypt and Ethiopia. Because of the importance of the Nile as a necessary water source in the region. There's a lot of concern that that may end up in just a giant international war. Yeah, there's a problem.
There are not only physical water usage wars being waged, but there's also physical, water quality wars being waged in different parts of the world. As you have followed just historical wars, particularly in African nations, you will get warring tribal leaders that will actually purposely sabotage the water supply of their competitors or their competing tribes. So it's the rights, it's the quality, it's such a scarce resource, and everybody knows it, that they are willing to go to such unimaginable lengths to both protect what they currently have access to, and to make sure that their "enemy" doesn't have access to.
Bringing together the massive amount of brainpower that’s needed to bring about solutions to the problems around water conservation and security.
Katherine Ann Byam 9:31
It's quite scary. So now I want to pivot us a little bit because we've scared everyone enough. So what models around the world do you consider to be working or need more exploration?
Jennifer Loudon 9:44
Yeah, one of my favourite experiences throughout my professional career was being fortunate enough to be able to go to a programme called Unleash Innovation Lab. It was in 2018. The programme is called Unleash and it was held in Singapore by a separate organisation, but they're linking all of the Sustainable Development Goals, and bringing a thousand young professionals from around the world to come together to develop and accelerate innovative solutions to those SDGs. And partnering those VIPs, including myself, which was fabulous, with multiple stakeholders that are at the forefront of innovation and global development in this. So we were able to work with investors.
We were able to work with technology developers. We were able to work with people who were actually experiencing these issues. And I think it's programs like Unleash that are bringing together this massive amount of brainpower under one space, and really posing these large questions, we know that there isn't going to be a single solution that is going to magically solve all of the world's problems. But think tanks like this and programmes like this, where it's like, "okay, we have some major problems that we need to figure out, let's bring together the best and the brightest, and see what they can come up with." So there's a company that is taking water infrastructure to another level for places that don't even have wooden piping systems, to distribute clean water to places. Water.org, it's Matt Damon's company. It's really kind of cool to have that kind of star power on the waterside of things.
I'm still trying to get Matt Damon to come to some sort of water quality conference. So if anybody out there knows him, you know, by all means, shoot my contact information his way. They do microloans to these developing nations and never mind having infrastructure that's falling apart. They don't have any sort of infrastructure for water and sanitation. In developed nations, we kind of have it easy, where we just need to invest in it. We need to get some additional understanding and really try to be mindful of the conditions of our sewer infrastructure. It needs support, it needs investment.
Next time, your rate is projected to go up for your water or sewer bill, there is a reason for that. Water.org is trying to, from the ground up, get microloans out there for people who don't even have that amount of water infrastructure. And it's allowing people who are living in poverty the financial long-term solution versus just struggling day to day to find out where their next few litres of water is going to come from.
So I think that that's also a model that is really going to help kind of fill in the gaps around the world in places that don't have a set organised infrastructure. But again, even something like that isn't going to solve all of the problems. But getting think tanks together, trying to figure out unique ways of not only employing new technology, new administrative and utility-oriented designs, microloans, and different ways of how a utility is structured. And that's actually what I work with on the utility side of things.
Shout out to all my water and sanitation essential personnel out there working hard during the COVID-19 crisis. But it's going to take more than technology. I think the administration and the water distribution issue is really going to be where those models and those innovators like myself are going to really step in on things.
Katherine Ann Byam 14:09
Those are great ideas. And I want to touch now on what you're doing. So the actual business that you started up in May is Intelligent Water Services. Tell us about your company, and the problem that you're solving.
The need for a process and technology that leads water utilities to become sustainable and adapt to a circular economic model.
Jennifer Loudon 14:23
Yeah, so like I just kind of alluded to, I'm more focused on the water quality and the administration part of things. I think that at Unleashed, I've met some amazing people who are focused on deploying technology for water and wastewater treatment itself. That is fantastic! I was decidedly out of my league and in that regard I am going to leave that up to them. Coming from a wastewater utility background, I started to find inefficiencies, just in the (again) United States as a fully developed nation in most regards.
Thankfully as of November third, we tried to get rid of the undeveloped parts. We are fully developed in that there's no excuse why we have water and sanitation issues. So from the utility side of things, looking at inefficiencies, I've come up with a way to streamline the way wastewater treatment utilities manage their industrial users. So basically wastewater utilities get input from all sorts of different areas, whether residential - things that you flushed on the toilet roll down drainage, hospitals. With the
Coronavirus crisis, we're working with a lot of hospitals as well as industrial users, manufacturing facilities, food processing plants, things like that - all of the stuff that gets swirled down the drain there also goes to wastewater facilities. So I've come up with a way to combine the water quality aspects of SDG 6 with the sustainable cities and communities of SDG 11. And that's why I'm working on a process as a service business model, coupled with advanced technology to help these water utilities become more sustainable and to not only have better water quality but also jump into the future of a truly sustainable and then circular economic model.
Katherine Ann Byam 16:31
I love this. This is really exciting stuff. And I'm looking forward to you sharing your link so that people can find out more about what you're doing. I think this is great work. I think the final question that I have is - How can we as individuals better manage our water resources? I know we are going to make a lot of people more conscious of this issue now but I'd love to know what we can do as well.
Jennifer Loudon 16:53
Yeah, so I wish I could say there was one key tip for everybody to take home. But the biggest thing is to just be mindful about your water usage. There's a website called the valueofwater.org and its value of water campaign is looking at water and the importance of it and again, trying to help wrap your head around the value of it and that we shouldn't take it for granted, so be mindful of it. There's another website called imagineadaywithoutwater.org that actually well imagines a day without water. It's trying to get people more engaged and more understanding about their individual water usage habits.
You know, it takes 19 gallons of fresh water to grow one apple. So thinking about where your food comes from, and the amount of water going into growing that food, and thinking from a climate change perspective where your food comes from and the carbon usage for that food source wrapping water into that, you get like a food-water-energy nexus. So try to be mindful about it, engaging in social media, with friends, family members, frenemies at this point - anyone just to kind of share what is the value of water to you? "What is water worth to you?" You can host an event in your community.
You can get water in the news. Again, trying to go back to social media, publicising things that are going on in the world regarding water. Water and sanitation are some of those things we take for granted because it's out of sight out of mind. And it's been that way in most developed nations for quite some time to the point where it's like nobody really pays attention to what happens when they flush the toilet.
Or when they turn on and off the tap at their sink. Again, it brings it back to imagine going a single day without having the access that we all enjoy. If you're listening to a podcast, chances are you're in a highly technologically evolved area where you enjoy water and sanitation services without giving it a second thought. So be mindful of it. Like I said before, be mindful of the conditions of water and sewer infrastructure.
There's a reason why rates do need to increase. Think about the amount that you spend on your quarterly water bill versus what you spend on your monthly cell phone bill. Just to put things into perspective, it's one of those things where we need to invest in. And we've been almost delaying the inevitable of things being broken and things being old and now we're paying for that. Now how can we get around? Kind of a call to action for everybody. We need to change the way we think about things.
And that's both on the technology side as well as just the human consumption side. And I kind of go from the water industry and bringing in technology, I'm kind of trying to bridge two worlds. And so I've started to pick up role models from each side of things, both on the water and the tech side. And one of the people that I've really kind of latched on to what they say, US Navy Rear Admiral and an absolute pioneering woman in STEM, Grace Hopper. She has a lot of fabulous quotes throughout her life.
But one of the things that she really mentioned, and this is one of the tenets that I kind of live by, and what started me to really want to start my own company with this once I came up with the idea of linking water, IoT and blockchain, which can be a whole separate podcast at some point. But she said the most dangerous phrase in the language is, "we've always done it this way."
Katherine Ann Byam 21:10
Absolutely, to agree with that.
Jennifer Loudon 21:12
If people can change that mindset, then we're going to be on our way to better water management, to better global resource management.
Katherine Ann Byam 21:24
Absolutely. Wonderful. Look, I think this has been a great session. Thank you for all your insights and for sharing with us and for moving us to act because I think we're all scared now.
Jennifer Loudon 21:36
There is hope I promise.
Katherine Ann Byam 21:39
Tell everyone how they can find out more about what you do and to support your mission.
Jennifer Loudon 21:44
Yeah, so to come into contact with me the best way is to find me on LinkedIn, just Jennifer Loudon. I have a nice little professional looking headshot that I got done for free at a conference a few years ago, back when we met in person. Find me on Instagram, jen_loudon, and my company is called Intelligent Water Services. And you can find me at intelligentwaterservices.com.
Katherine Ann Byam 22:13
Awesome. Thanks for joining us, Jen.
Jennifer Loudon 22:14
Thank you. My pleasure.