17 Innovators Highlight Investment to Solve Global Water Challenges
22.3.2023 18:15:00 EET | Business Wire | Press release
Seventeen organizations have joined forces to support the United Nations (UN) Water Action Agenda, pledging to invest $11 billion in water innovation over the next five years.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230322005481/en/
Innovators highlight investment to solve global water challenges (Photo: Business Wire)
The collective commitment will be announced later today at an event organized by water technology company Xylem (NYSE: XYL) and the Kingdom of the Netherlands, convened during the UN 2023 Water Conference. The pledges will be included in the Water Action Agenda, a collection of all water-related commitments to accelerate progress on UN Sustainable Development Goal 6 targeting Water and Sanitation.
Executives from Xylem, Veolia, XPV, Hydraloop International, and Hansgrohe will be joined by several nonprofit organizations, to pledge their commitment to invest in innovative water solutions. The funds will be directed toward water-related research and development, start-up companies commercializing innovative approaches to water management, and the deployment of new water technologies. The organizations will also commit to ongoing engagement with development agencies, governments, and other stakeholders to facilitate more cross-sector action to solve water challenges.
“Most of humanity’s challenges today stem from our reliance on water, whether for human life or, on a larger scale, economic well-being and prosperity of society,” said Henk Ovink, Water Envoy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. “We all need it, but in some places there is too much and in other places there isn’t enough. As significant water investors and users, the private sector has a pivotal role to play. The organizations pledging their commitment today are at the forefront of bringing new innovations to water use, treatment, and recycling. This type of collective action is essential to tackling major water challenges, and to creating a sustainable planet for future generations.”
The commitment from the private and philanthropic sectors to invest in water solutions supports the UN 2023 Water Conference’s call for clear pledges and actions, across all sectors, industries, and interests to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
“For those who can simply turn on a tap, water may not seem like a problem,” said Patrick Decker, CEO of Xylem. “But the UN 2023 Water Conference is a timely reminder that water challenges are intensifying around the world. The organizations making commitments today recognize these are challenges we can and must solve. Many of the essential technologies already exist, but as climate change progresses, we need more innovative solutions and accelerated implementation to increase the resilience and water-security of communities everywhere.”
The inclusion of the private sector in the UN 2023 Water Conference, the first event of its kind since 1977, has been welcomed as essential in developing an impactful Water Action Agenda. The conference brings together stakeholders from across governments, the private sector, non-governmental organizations, nonprofits, academic institutions, and the scientific community to advance transformative ideas that can solve global water challenges.
Organizations contributing to the pledge include Acciona, Autodesk, BlueTech, Burnt Island Ventures, The Coca-Cola Foundation, Evoqua, Grundfos, Hansgrohe, Hydraloop, Idexx, UGSI Solutions, Veolia, Water Foundry Ventures, Wavin, Westly Group, XPV and Xylem.
The event - Private Sector Investment Commitment to Water Innovation - will convene technology innovators, investors, government, civil society, and development agencies to consider the role of innovation in advancing the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Organized by Xylem and the Consulate General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in New York, the event will be hosted in partnership with Bluetech Research, Burnt Island Ventures, Evoqua, the International Water Association, Mercy Corps, UNICEF, the Water Foundry, Veolia, the WateReuse Association, and the Water Research Foundation.
About Xylem
Xylem (XYL) is a leading global water technology company committed to solving critical water and infrastructure challenges with innovation. Our more than 17,000 diverse employees delivered revenue of $5.5 billion in 2022. We are creating a more sustainable world by enabling our customers to optimize water and resource management, and helping communities in more than 150 countries become water-secure. Join us at www.xylem.com.
To view this piece of content from cts.businesswire.com, please give your consent at the top of this page.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230322005481/en/
Contact information
Houston Spencer
+1 (914) 323-5723
Houston.Spencer@xylem.com
About Business Wire
For more than 50 years, Business Wire has been the global leader in press release distribution and regulatory disclosure.
Subscribe to releases from Business Wire
Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Latest releases from Business Wire
The Global Photonics Community Converges in San Francisco as More Than 23,000 Register for Photonics West 20263.2.2026 23:14:00 EET | Press release
SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, brought the global optics and photonics community to San Francisco, California, for another successful and enlivening Photonics West. With more than 23,000 registrants, the annual conference and exhibition connected attendees from 40 countries, showcasing the transnational and collaborative spirit of the interdisciplinary industry. The dynamic event ran from 17 to 22 January, with 4,200 technical presentations across 100 conferences, 4 stages of industry-focused panels and presentations, 49 courses, and approximately 1,600 exhibitors in the five expos: Photonics West, BiOS, Quantum West, AR | VR | MR, plus, in its inaugural year, Vision Tech. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260203925940/en/ Attendees of the 2026 SPIE Photonics West fill the Moscone Center, where nearly 1,600 exhibitors showcased their products. With an emphasis on the application of adv
Vena To Acquire Acterys, Creating a New Category of Enterprise Performance Management: Orchestrated Planning3.2.2026 18:00:00 EET | Press release
Vena, the only complete FP&A platform powered by agentic AI and purpose-built to amplify the Microsoft technology ecosystem, today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Managility Pty Ltd, operating as Acterys (“Acterys”), the industry’s leading Power BI–based operational planning and app development platform, subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approval. This acquisition unlocks a category-defining way for enterprises to combine planning, analytics, and application development within the Microsoft tools they already trust to run their business. By combining Vena’s Excel-native financial planning and analysis (FP&A) capabilities with Acterys’ proprietary Power BI write-back engine and unified analytics within Microsoft Fabric, Vena is creating the first Microsoft-native environment for Orchestrated Planning, an operating model that moves organizations beyond integrated planning into fully orchestrated and agentic AI-powered execution. Orches
Volante Technologies named a Leader in Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Banking Payment Hub Platforms3.2.2026 17:15:00 EET | Press release
Volante Technologies, the global leader in Payments as a Service (PaaS), today announced its recognition as a Leader in the 2026 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Banking Payment Hub Platforms, which evaluates vendors based on Ability to Execute and Completeness of Vision. In Volante’s view, Gartner positioned them as a Leader based on their capacity to support enterprise-scale payment processing in banks and financial institutions across multiple regions, deployment models, and operational environments. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260203149834/en/ This graphic was published by Gartner, Inc. as part of a larger research document and should be evaluated in the context of the entire document. As the highest positioned provider in Ability to Execute, Volante believes its AI-poweredPayments Platform is ISO 20022 native and provides complete, always-on, and composable payment processing support and can be deployed p
Toptal Ranked #1 Most Reliable Professional Services Company in America by Newsweek3.2.2026 17:00:00 EET | Press release
Toptal, the world’s largest fully remote workforce, has been ranked the #1 most reliable professional services company in America on the America’s Most Reliable Companies 2026 list by Newsweek and Statista. The list ranks top US companies based on trust, dependability, and consistent performance in their industry. In Newsweek’s ranking of 300 companies across all industries, Toptal took 10th place, right behind Bank of America and Oracle, which tied for 9th. As the most reliable professional services organization in America, Toptal, which ranked 11th in absolute rankings across all companies, placed well ahead of companies like Accenture (33), Deloitte (39), and Cognizant (66). The America’s Most Reliable Companies 2026 ranking is based on an independent survey of more than 80,000 evaluations submitted by 2,400 business decision-makers at America’s largest companies, including Apple, Dropbox, Johnson & Johnson, and UPS, making this recognition an especially meaningful indicator of prod
HTEC Research Reveals the Real AI Scaling Challenge: It’s Not the Technology3.2.2026 16:46:00 EET | Press release
AI has moved from ambition to action. Every organization is deploying it. Yet for most enterprises, the real challenge is only just beginning. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260203951136/en/ HTEC, a global AI‑first provider of software and hardware design and engineering services, released Executive Summary: A Cross‑Industry View of the State of AI in 2025, a global research report capturing how senior executives are navigating the next phase of AI transformation—and why scaling value remains elusive. Today, HTEC, a global AI‑first provider of software and hardware design and engineering services, released Executive Summary: A Cross‑Industry View of the State of AI in 2025, a global research report that captures how senior executives are navigating the next phase of AI transformation—and why scaling value remains elusive. Based on insights from 1,529 C‑suite executives worldwide, the research offers one of th
In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.
Visit our pressroom