Mr Stanley Samuel

Stanley is the Founder of ECOSOFTT – Eco Solutions For Tomorrow – Today and is recognized among “The 50 Most Talented Leaders in Water & Waste Water Management”. His organization is dedicated to addressing the challenges faced on account of water shortage, scarcity and quality by urban and rural habitats.

ECOSOFTT’s WATER SMART HOMES, BUILDINGS, ESTATES & WATER SMART COMMUNITIES offers a viable and attractive alternative to the conventional approaches in the developed and developing world and are very relevant for SMART CITIES, AMRUT Cities and the RURBAN Program in India.

Going beyond Zero Discharge, the Company’s current focus is on the design, development and deployment of “NET ZERO” Water SMART Estates, Buildings and Communities for achieving greater efficiencies in Water and Used Water Management as cities and villages are facing acute water stress.

In India, since 2014, his organization has delivered over 50 projects deploying various innovations in the decentralized and integrated management of water & used water both in urban and rural setting. His organization is expanding rapidly by delivering superior value and world-class solutions. ECOSOFTTs innovations and successes have been recognized as cutting edge and this is reflected in the various awards won in a very short span of time such as the ASEAN-INDIA Grand Challenge – CleanTech-2018, FICCI’s Most Innovative Water Company-2017, Water SMART Communities Award 2016, New Delhi, Top 50 SMEs in ASEAN and most promising Social Enterprise 2016-2017, Fuller Challenge, Socially Responsible Design’s Highest Award 2014, Global Top 20, Golden Globe Tigers Award, 2015, Best Social Enterprise 2014, Singapore Institute of Directors, Winner of The EY Accelerating Entrepreneurs Programme 2016 and many others.

www.ecosoftt.org                                                          sg.linkedin.com/in/stanleysamuelecosoftt

The underlying theme for the presentation/key messages are on the following page. These can be further adapted to suit the goals of the panel and for the benefit of the session. Please connect us to the moderator nearer the time so we can make the necessary adjustments.

Context & Challenges

A brief introduction and key facts related to context for water, challenges & way forward (in the Indian context) with a focus on three aspects water shortage, scarcity and quality that both the developed and developing world are coming to terms with. India is no exception as it has only about 4% of the world’s water to support over 16% of the worlds population.

The presentation will focus on top challenges owing to rapid urbanization, competing demands and how mismanagement is adding to the strain to the existing systems and infrastructure. By 2060 or before it is expected that over 70% of the world’s population will live in city like conditions. Most of these are going to be mushrooming in three scenarios viz., off grid, partial grid or dysfunctional grid and where the grid will be overloaded. Whilst investments in infrastructure projects linked to water and wastewater are in big demand, what is seen on the ground are a mixed bag of successes and failures owing to delays, flaws in designs, challenges of retro-fitting and up gradation as a by product of myopic plans, flawed designs, lack of coordination between a multitude of agencies and competence of those making decisions as well as those responsible for execution.

Most of India depends on surface and ground water sources. With over extraction, depletion & contamination of sources the current approach and models are not sustainable.

Opportunities & The Way Forward

Having identified some of the key challenges associated with the current dominant solutions and approaches, the presentation will share concrete case studies/success stories (1-2), emphasize on the need for managing the ‘water balance at point of use and discharge especially when it comes to potable water and discharge of used water (sewage). The way forward will be to ‘promote’ the use of potable water for potable purposes only and through innovative practices become better at reducing our real and virtual water footprint. Clearly there is a need to shift ‘present paradigms’ via alternatives, innovations and complimentary solutions. The main lever will be the management of the ‘total water cycle’ and how this responsibility has to be a shared across users and stakeholders. Will emphasize on the need for  ‘end-to-end view or management of water from source-to-source-at-source” thereby leading to more efficient use of both in the urban and rural context.

In a country like India where the gap in demand and supply is expected to be over 40% by 2030 or even before, we cannot continue to use potable water for various non-potable purposes or take clean from mother nature every day and give back only dirty. We cannot afford to extract at rates at which mother-nature cannot recharge itself. We cannot abandon lakes, reservoirs and let rivers decay. There is a clear need to review the use of water in the production and consumption value chain supported by delivery of services and how they affect our real and virtual water footprint which is ‘out of sync’ and will lead to disastrous consequences in the very near future and for the long term.