[00:00:00] Speaker A: The estimated water demand or spend on water management in the sector could be $26 billion by 2030. So it could be really significant.
I am Reese Tisdall, and this is the future of water, in which we talk about all the ways which companies, utilities and people are addressing the challenges and opportunities in water. This is episode 96, and I know it's going to be a good one. Well, we're just four episodes away from 100, so for all you first time listeners, that means there's an archive of discussion topics on things like PFAS, water quality m, and a, private equity positions in water and strategies, policy ships, and a lot more, which is just at your fingertips on all those podcast platforms that you probably already subscribed to. So take this opportunity and why don't you just hit follow the future of Water podcast? It helps us help you. We get an idea of how many people are listening, downloading, and paying attention to the future of water. But today I'm joined by Bluefield Research's Amber Walsh. Been a little while since having Amber on podcast to talk about what's happening on the industrial waterfront. So, led by Amber, Bluefield recently released its quarterly review of keywater events and trends shaping industrial water management. So she and I talk a little bit, or should I say are planning to talk about, because I haven't talked to her yet. She and I are going to talk about food and beverage sector semiconductors, actually Mexico's drought and its impact on industrial water management, but also the reality of what is corporate sustainability, maybe get into what it means? And is it really a driving factor in corporate water management decisions? Is it bringing opportunities to the table for water solutions providers, but also signaling that water is a real concern for industrial verticals and companies in those respective sectors? But before we do that, I thought I'd share some news that caught my attention this past week, maybe a week ago. Because, not going to lie, I've been in Europe the past two weeks. I was working out of Barcelona, meeting with the team over there, and then I was in France doing some other things. I'm now back in the ball game and recording this episode of Future Water podcast. So something that caught my news over the past couple weeks, should I say chemical and materials company Dupont said on May 22 that it was going to split into three publicly traded companies. In doing so, it's going to separate out its water and electronics units. The remaining company, which will be dubbed new DuPont, will focus on healthcare, automotive safety and protection products. The old DuPont, actually a little bit of background emerged with Dow and I think $130 billion megadeal in 2017 subsequently split into three companies, leaving today's, what is today's DuPont as well as Dow and Cortiva Agri Science in 2019. So this is kind of amazing. It's merge with Dow, split up and now its taking DuPont and its splitting up again. So I guess really for water, what does that mean? So I think the expectation is that smaller could lead to bigger. The CEO has been over the years trying to slough off aging assets, raise cash so he can divert into other racier ones, sometimes at questionable prices thereafter. But after the split, his successors will at least run a more focused companies in the case of water, more focused on water and what theyre doing within the space. So this is interesting because we also saw this recently with Danahers public spin off of what is now Viralto its business, that it also allows the company to have greater control and focus on its water businesses. That includes everything from what markets its active in m and a partnerships and actually what's actually happening that has historically, in the case of DuPont, the water business may have been overshadowed by all the other high flying areas of focus, whether it be healthcare and things of such. Same was for Danaher, right? Danaher was doing something similar. And so I think Viralto as well will have greater opportunity to grow because cause as we all know, the water sector is a little bit unique than everything else. It doesn't always run at the same speed as some of these other high PE type sectors, but this also requires, you know, from a blue field perspective. I'm interested in this because admittedly I'm shooting from the hip here, but requires a little bit more analysis other than sharing my thoughts here. But we seem to be witnessing a bit of a small wave of emerging larger pure play water players. Just thinking about the discussions we've had on this podcast. So just thinking back, Weve talked a bit about Xylem, which is now even much stronger with Evoqua impacting really its light industrial water management solutions in key markets, growth markets like Asia, France based Sauer has added industrial to its portfolio. Its been going through some M and A, not only in Europe but also in the US. So its changing its profile before our eyes. I already mentioned a much more water focused for Alto has been spun out of Danaher, but also Dupont's going to stand alone. But there are a number of other companies, not just, you know, there's some that have been in the water space but are pure plays, whether it be badger meter, actually investor and utility, Liberty utilities which is owned by Algonquin. They've recently put out news or advice that they are going to, say, double down or put increased efforts on its regulated water business in the US. So it'll be interesting to see how that happens. But the pure play water space is becoming more advanced. It's becoming a little bit bigger. And I think part of that is just the overarching concerns about water wastewater management. As we've talked about, I had some meetings earlier this week with a number of financial players, but also people active in the water industry. And part of the discussion was, you know, the climate problem is really a water problem when we're talking about climate events, when there's 75% of them roughly are, climate events are roughly water related in some form or another. It's probably time we start figuring out long term solutions to deal with the climate. But in the short term, I think we need to start adapting to what's happening because we're sailing past the temperature targets. And if the scientists are in science is in fact correct or close to correct, we're going to be swimming in water pretty soon, and so we're going to have to live with it. So what does that mean but changing subjects? So that was my news of the week, or every other week. Our team has been also on the road from Swan in Vancouver talking about digital solutions. I think if you're not active in Swan, it's a really good event for networking and also insights on the digital water space. We've been at ifat in Munich, which is massive. We're talking 80,000 people in Munich a couple weeks ago. This coming week, actually, by the time this episode drops, we will be at Ace in Anaheim talking about mostly drinking water with a number of clients and prospects. And then soon thereafter, we'll be heading to Singapore Water weekend, uh, where we are, Ethan Edwards and Christine Au are presenting two different papers or their analysis on what's happening, I think one on hydrogen and one on digital markets in, in Asia. So if you've missed on the chance to speak with our team, all you have to do is reach out by sending us an email at water
[email protected]. also, I want to give a quick plug to Bluefield's weekly waterline email. Some people consider it a newsletter. I think internally we don't do as much because what it does is it really shares select news from our team of analysts that they thought was interesting. Over the course of the week, it also provides new research updates that we're putting out and it comes in a number of different forms, whether it be some of it's free. So if you stay tuned, we have blog posts and we do provide complimentary content, but topics include everything from, you know, what's happening with iija hydrogen. We look at market share of the leading engineering companies, not only in the US but around the world, what they're doing, where they're going, and then, admittedly self fulfilling. We provide podcast updates not only for this podcast, Future Water, but also Dave McGimpsey's the Water Values podcast.
He shows outside guests that talk about a number and a range of different topics. So if you're interested in the water sector and getting your information through podcasts, those are two future Water and the Water Values podcast. It's easy to sign up for the Waterline newsletter at the top of our
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All right, so I'm joined here right now with Bluefield senior analyst Amber Walsh. Amber, how's it going?
[00:10:11] Speaker B: Good. How are you?
[00:10:13] Speaker A: Pretty good. I mean, we met yesterday. I've already lost track of the week. I've been gone for two weeks. And so my, I'm all out of rhythm. I don't even know what day it is. But in any case, I appreciate you jumping on podcast to talk about industrial water. You've recently released a quarterly review on industrial water for Bluefield clients. And so I'm hoping you might be able to provide or share some of the takeaways from the report, some of the high level or highlights, and then also we can get in some other areas talking about other things that have caught your attention over the past quarter and also maybe even what you see going forward. So why don't we make it simple and let's just talk about a couple of takeaways from the quarterly review. What jumps out at you as far as what the listeners might want to hear?
[00:11:02] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. The first thing that comes to mind is semiconductors. So a key takeaway, I think worth noting, is the rollout of government funding in the US for the Chips act. So at the beginning of the year, we saw global foundries being awarded a billion and a half dollars indirect funding. But there were still a lot of questions around. Okay, what is the funding that these other large semiconductor manufacturers are going to get? So this quarter we saw companies like TSMC, Micron, Intel, Samsung receiving funding for their us facilities, and that totaled just shy of $30 billion.
So that we noted last quarter, the uncertainty around funding was an issue in the construction of these facilities. We saw with intel that mixed with market challenges, push back the start of construction on their facility. So this quarter we saw that they were awarded $8.5 billion in direct funding. So hopefully that helps to push along that project.
[00:12:10] Speaker A: Yeah, it seems like there are a number of issues.
Its not just semiconductors. It feels like were seeing a slower rollout than expected in everything from state revolving funds. And part of it is ramping up the permitting process. The supply chain has historically been an issue. So the industry semiconductors, its receiving large investments from government. But let's bring it back to water a bit. So why are we following the funding? What is it could or doesn't mean for semiconductors, but also for a number of our clients, what should they be interested in?
[00:12:47] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. So we're tracking this funding because it is such a large capital investment. And these are large facilities that have significant water requirements. From your intake water, you need the ultra pure water and then you also have your wastewater discharge. So there is a lot of water talks around these facilities and it is an opportunity for your water service solution providers. For example, Veolia announced last year it won about $177 million contract with Samsung for their Texas facility. And that is for their water recovery facility. That includes everything from biotreatment to nitrogen treatment to zero liquid discharges and wastewater pre treatment. So they are selecting these large water solution providers to help with the water management at these facilities. And there's a lot of money to be had.
[00:13:45] Speaker A: Yeah, I think what's interesting about the semiconductors, I mean, we've talked a little bit about this, and that is if all goes swimmingly, so to speak, meaning goes to plan, even though there's been a slower rollout, it's a pretty near term opportunity. I mean, by that, I mean over the next, let's say, decade, right. It's 2024, midway point. So we're looking to maybe 2030, maybe 2035, let's say, be a little more conservative. But there's going to be this build out of these large plants and then will it, in fact, tail off? I mean, maybe there is, maybe the government actually gets us act together and starts doing something and commits even further to what is. I think a big part of this really is national security. So there could be more opportunities.
[00:14:33] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. And when I was looking at the semiconductor space for the water for semiconductor report, we saw it was just so expensive to build here in the US compared to in certain places in Asia. There's also government incentives over there and we're seeing in Europe chips incentives as well. So it really is a global conversation as much as we're talking about right now, the US and their rollout, there is also opportunities elsewhere.
[00:15:00] Speaker A: I mean, there's still an overarching question which, you know, we could probably spend this whole podcast talking about semiconductors. But I think at the start, I think I mentioned I was having dinner with some people earlier this week and from all parts of the industry, from financial community to solutions providers as well. And a big part of the discussion was, or part of it was in fact the Chips act. And why are we building semiconductor fabs in places like Arizona or Texas? Is that really sustainable in the long term? Is it just rubber stamp their tax incentives? There are certainly a core group of people, let's say workforce within those areas because of companies like intel have been in places like Phoenix historically. So it raises a lot of questions. You look at it on paper and it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I could be far more cynical about it, but there are concerns, right? You could build these in California, but then you also have to start worrying about earthquakes. Kind of have to pick your poison. Maybe they feel that the water management can be managed. I think there definitely are solutions, but I mean, anything else when it comes to semiconductors, that's worth bringing up and then maybe we'll jump into another topic.
[00:16:21] Speaker B: Yeah, just a quick note here that I find interesting is we've been looking at PFAS largely from the water utility standpoint, so following the EPA new regulations. But it's also worth noting that when we have talked with some PFAS removal solution providers, semiconductor manufacturers are having conversations with those solution providers for, okay, what happens when regulations are on us and what solutions can we deploy, especially with all the capital going into the space, they're like, okay, what's the capex of this system for us to install? And is that going to mitigate our risk when it comes to PFAS? So that is just something to keep an eye on in the evolving PFAS space.
[00:17:08] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't know. You may have seen this. It's early in the morning, but I think it was last night or towards the end of the day yesterday. I was actually going through some financials. I was actually looking at a comms financial reports for the quarter, just sort of seeing where aecom is, what we're doing. And I did come across, they put out a presentation in early May on PFAS. They were estimating the size of the PFAS market, I believe. It's just, it wasn't just in the US because I think it was included Department of Defense contracts, but they're looking at a $250 billion market. There's a presentation. It was definitely interesting. They have a transcript of the presentation, so if any listeners are interested, you can reach out to me. But PFAS is real, right? We're seeing, it's not just a municipal water and or wastewater problem. The question is sort of creeping into industrials. What are their inputs look like, what materials are they using? And it exposes them potentially to risk. So let's change gears. What about, what about hydrogen? Any, any thoughts on hydrogen to take from the quarterly?
[00:18:20] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. So something that we continue to see in the news is the development of new green hydrogen projects. So this quarter, Bluefield put out an insight report on the hydrogen economy, looking at water demand management strategies and a global forecast. So recent news we saw was just last week, Brussels gave the green light for a 1.4 billion euro investment. So state subsidy in hydrogen projects. So I will though, however, state that I have looked at this less than, than you. So I was wondering if you had any insights on the space.
[00:18:59] Speaker A: Yeah, I think I brought it up in this podcast, but I think it's a really interesting space. There's something in the news I feel like every day on hydrogen, and it really does divide into really two camps, this is going to happen and it's going to be huge, or this is ridiculous and it's never going to happen. I think it's somewhere in between. And I know that's a little, that's somewhat lame, but the reality of it is, I think we've talked a little bit about there are approximately 2000 projects in various stages of planning around the world. They're really key markets to look at. So obviously Europe in many respects, for green hydrogen in particular, meaning sort of low carbon, driven by or powered by renewables, things like wind and solar, Europe is at the leading edge. Youre seeing fair amount of activity in Australia, which its a smaller market. The US, on the other hand, actually has a fair amount of hydrogen production for industrial uses, but its either gray or blue hydrogen its not green hydrogen. So what were expecting because of the Inflation Reduction act and dollars allocated to hydrogen, we're expected to see that ramp up over time. And also the US has a fair amount of renewables. So that's one thing that at least the Biden administration has really been pushing is that transition, energy transition. So as it stands, if you just look at those 2000 or so projects, if all this happens, with few exceptions, I mean there's some nuance to it, but the estimated water demand or spend on water management in the sector could be $26 billion by 2030. So it could be really significant. And what does that mean? That could be the need of, I think, 340 or so billion gallons of annual water demand. Well, I'm going to tell you this, $340 billion of annual water demand doesn't mean anything to me. What it means is basically what the water demand for New York City. So we're looking at 15, 20 million people are using all that. It's in early stage of development. It's largely dependent on the advancement of electrolyzer technology. Also key players. I mean it's a lot of names that you've seen. So when we map it out, we look at the oil and gas players.
So the shell, the BP's of the world, they do have a renewable footprint. But then also there are these sort of what we call, or I give full credit to Bloomberg, they're the ones who really called it out several years ago. It's like instead of like the oil and gas or oil super majors, there are these renewable majors or renewable super majors. So companies like Nextera in the US or Iberdrola or to speak of specifically, but they have large renewable footprints. So this is sort of added or adjacent benefit or opportunity maybe is a better way to put it for them is I was listening to the Catalyst podcast, which amber, I know you've listened to. They were talking yesterday about not only electric vehicles but the rollout of all these renewables. And so if we go full renewables, we're going to have to overbuild in many respects, renewable capacity. That is the case. Not to get too wonky, but we'll have to curtail power at certain times of day. So there will be this excess, there'll be excess electrons out there for use. And so that could be applied to things like hydrogen production that can be used for industry, could be used for transportation, could be used for backup power storage. So hydrogen is not really the fuel. It's really a storage mechanism for electrons that come from other sources so I could go on and on about this. So you asked. So there you go. I told you. So.
Let me kick it back to you. I know a big area of discussion, or we've put out a report, I think this quarter, we put it out, but we've also done some analysis on the food and beverage sector.
That was a takeaway, I know, in the quarterly as well, and maybe they're related. So what's happening in the food and beverage sector?
[00:23:04] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. We see in food and Bev wastewater treatment, it does remain a large area spend for these facilities. They're seeing increasingly stringent discharge regulations. They're pushing for advanced treatment. Last year, we saw Smithfield food spending about 45 million on a new wastewater treatment plant to meet the stricter regulations on nitrates and ammonia discharges. So that's a key trend that we're tracking. And then also municipal surcharges for treatment. They can range from a couple thousand dollars to millions of dollars per year. So as that becomes a larger operational cost, that these larger scale facilities might make moves to put their treatment on site. So that is another trend we're watching. We've seen higher operational costs impact these facilities. So facilities are dependent on certain commodity prices, energy prices increasing, material prices increasing. So that all has an impact on their operational costs and their resiliency as the market's been a little more uncertain in the past year. And then something that we saw this past quarter that highlights a trend that we saw in the report is Pepsi's Quaker Oats facility in Illinois. It was shut down due to a contamination outbreak of salmonella. So it was more cost effective to close the facility than upgrade and meet standards. And that applies to the water side of it as well. We're seeing this trend that retrofitting these older facilities, specifically in food and Bev, just isn't making a ton of financial sense in some cases. And they're looking to upgrade facilities, newer facilities, that it makes more sense financially. So they do have small margins. And we're tracking the retrofitting versus greenfield development of the space.
[00:25:02] Speaker A: Trey, I think one thing that comes to mind, and honestly, I'm completely shooting from the hip here now, but it makes me think back to Covid when we started, whether it be biobot or other solutions providers, I don't know if kendo was doing it in Europe, but tracking Covid and wastewater treatment plants, I remember a number of companies and clients were coming to us to say, hey, what are other applications for wastewater based epidemiology? And one segment that did come up was food and beverage. When you're looking at it, could be meatpacking plants or other facilities like that where you can continually monitor and track what's happening with certain.
I don't know if we call them constituents. I don't know a better way to put it. Things like salmonella, but also what's coming out of the plant, tracking it in real time. There's an application for that as well. Yeah, I think back to your first point, and really, it's about surcharges.
I don't know. And when we look at industrial facilities in the US, you can correct me if I'm wrong, Amber. We're looking at about 225,000 industrial facilities in the US of various sizes. Right. And so if you use, like, Pepsi, obviously they have larger facilities.
Pepsi, the Kochs, you know, the larger companies of the world, the Tysons, they probably make up 80, 70% of sort of production for certain things. And then there's this other 30%. And maybe the latter. Rely more heavily on municipal. They're smaller, rely more on municipal entities. And that's really who's maybe taking the bigger hit. They may not have the capital to ultimately deal with these surcharges, but whereas, like the pepsis of the world, they will definitely move in that direction, manage on site. They probably have a team of people on site to sort of monitor these things. So, pretty interesting. So I'm right on the 225,000?
[00:27:04] Speaker B: Yes. For the key verticals that we track. So it's not fully comprehensive, but for the main verticals.
[00:27:10] Speaker A: Okay. All right, good. Thanks for clarifying that. And then one thing that came up. We were actually talking. I don't know if it was earlier this week. I don't. Maybe it was earlier this week. One thing that came up was Mexico's ongoing drought. This sort of. I don't want to see. Caught me off guard, but I was definitely interesting. But the drought. There was some news that caught your attention because there has been an impact, or seeming impact on industrial water and water management and supplies.
What's happening in Mexico?
[00:27:41] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. So last year, we actually saw with beverage facility or manufacturers that they were facing backlash for using a lot of water, where the residents of the area were getting water from water trucks. So that was an event that we saw play out last year. But then just recently, this week, we saw chemical manufacturers in the country having to pause operations. So, for example, Kemmer's company, they paused operations of their titanium dioxide manufacturing facility in Mexico, a chemical that's used for a bunch of different products from paint to paper to coated fabrics to soap to just a bunch of different things. And the pause was a result of the severe drought that's currently going on and the government requesting for temporary reductions of intake. We saw this happen in a different state in Mexico as well, and in the north, about having to half its water supply to chemical and other industrial companies.
So it is interesting to see how this water scarcity is now directly impacting operations. It's not just okay, it's bad press, but it's actually okay. We need to halt production. And the timeline's not clear because the water quality is degrading, but it's also the quantity is so low.
[00:29:06] Speaker A: I mean, Mexico, it'll be interesting to see what happens in Mexico because obviously the city, I think it's been a while, I think I plugging myself here when I was interviewed by the world, the podcast, it's a public radio, at least through public radio channels.
Mexico City faces day zero itself. We're talking 20 million people who may not have enough water supplies. And I think in that interview, it's not just people at homes that are going to be impacted. The industry is definitely impacted as well. It can undermine an economy. But also just that Mexico now has a new president, just elected new president. Claudia Scheinbaum, I believe is her name, I think was the mayor of Mexico City. So she's hyper focused on water now. The question is, you know, she's likely to follow the path of Manuel Lopez Obrador, to follow his path. I think he's very sort of populist. And the question is, what does this mean? How will they solve this, these water problems? Because it's not going to be cheap and you can't rebuild a water system in a day. So maybe now Mexico is feeling the pain. And I think ultimately, if industry is impacted in Mexico, what does that mean for the US? Right.
Mexico supplies, obviously a number of things to the US, whether it be completing manufacturing, but also maybe raw inputs as well.
Anything else to add on Mexico?
[00:30:48] Speaker B: Yeah, that was the key takeaways. Just highlights how water scarcity, it's directly impacting industrial operations, especially like in the north where you can directly export it, these goods, these chemicals to the US, like you were mentioning. And what does that mean? Halting operations for the us supply, but then also for these facilities and their revenues. I mean, industrial operates on meeting the bottom line and your facility shut down, that's not going to be beneficial.
[00:31:19] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a bit of a house of cards. I mean, back to semiconductors, I mean, all the semiconductors are being manufactured in Taiwan. China is a whole nother issue. They also don't have much water either. They go through their own droughts. And so water is causing, potentially causing all these disruptions around the world. But what about corporate sustainability? I mean, maybe it starts tying into that. Do you mind sharing some thoughts on what it is and its role in driving more advanced water management? Because I know you've been doing some research on that as well. And maybe the stronger question is, is it B's?
[00:31:55] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. So the drought in Mexico is kind of a good lead in for how water scarcity is impacting operations. And it also does kind of frame how we're looking at this, quote, water sustainability. So more of an operational risk mitigation strategy and potentially marketing tool. So companies, they've largely been motivated to set these water reduction targets. Everyone else is doing it. We better do it too, especially on your consumer facing brands. And they also are disclosing water use, which has been widely voluntary. But as we talked earlier, the podcast, I think actually maybe last year about the EU corporate sustainability reporting directive, it's upping the number of companies that need to disclose their water use. That's one piece of it. Your, okay, what are your company goals? What's your water usage? But there has been a lot of hype about this water sustainability, whether you're being water positive. So it's like, okay, you set this water goal, but what does that even mean? And we've talked about this at length like it's an evolving discussion, but you can set a goal, you can disclose your water use, but what are you doing otherwise? So when we talk about, okay, is it B's or not, we really, I've taken a project standpoint of it. Like, what are the projects that they're actually implementing? Like at the facility level? And we do see a lot of these replenishment projects, which I have personal opinions about, but these companies, they're like, okay, we're going to keep our water use the same or potentially even increase over time, but we're going to allocate funds to restore a river or a wetland in a watershed. And that's going to count towards our goal. So although that serves a benefit, but what I'm more interested in is about, okay, what are the water projects? What's the innovation happening at the facility level, like on site, to minimize your water usage and potentially deploy water reuse strategies?
[00:34:04] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, shout out to my friend Andrew Benson. We talked a bit about this because this is kind of his space.
I think one of the challenges is it's become somewhat polarizing. Well, ESG has, right. And so like you mentioned, EU directives and the EU is known for this. Right. They sort of provide these top down directives and guidance and they start controlling potentially inflows products based on certain criteria like its carbon footprint. In this case it could be water footprint over time or pfas related. Does it have pfas or not? So there's the top down piece if we to the discussion I had with Andrew and that is really talking about ESG, corporate sustainability. If we change the name to just corporate operational risk management, I mean that's really what it is. So either you care about that because that's how it pays for itself. You could argue that if you're just doing it for branding, it's not going to work. I think time and time again it's because it really needs to have a bottom line impact and maybe doesn't fully pay for itself, meaning that there are other benefits but there needs to be some operational risk mitigation in doing so. Otherwise it is b's and it has become polarized. But like you said, companies are doing things right. I think one of the challenges I have is, and I'm sort of working through this, is that companies have a responsibility to their shareholders. At the end of the day, a publicly traded company, that's just the light, that's life. I don't know of another way to get around it. Their responsibility is not necessarily to the rest of the world. I'm not saying that's always the case. You can talk to different companies and different boards and sure, I think they feel strongly one way or another. So what is the role of government and regulators to start controlling? I mean, I think the role of government is to protect us from ourselves in some respects. I think that's probably more evident than ever. Now look at Arizona, right? We talked about semiconductors, but there's also, we've done research, we've done research notes on other industrials including Procter and Gamble, Red Bull. We've mentioned them about they're the companies trying to find ways to do reuse within the state of Arizona. But what is Arizona doing? I mean really their state and economy is dependent on growth, housing growth, people going to golf courses and agriculture. Right. And so at some point is Arizona or is the government going to have to turn off the lights? I don't know. Right. And it may the Colorado river as well. This is a big question and I'm sure I could get a lot of feedback on this, but I don't want to pull you under the bus with me, so why don't we change gears and make it an easier, more achievable question? Amber, so what, what are you working on?
[00:37:10] Speaker B: Yeah, I am working on the sustainability report, as we just discussed. So looking at top companies, water goals, usage, but then, most importantly, what's the story? What projects are they actually deploying? And then also a North America industrial water market sizing forecast.
[00:37:29] Speaker A: Yeah. So I know some clients are looking for the sustainability report. I know that's pretty close. And then the industrial forecast could be. We're really excited about that. And we were talking about it just before getting on this recording, not only in North America, but also Europe as well. So it'll be interesting to see how that plays out. And we've done a lot of, we've got a lot of individual sector analyses out there that you've taken a big part in over the past year putting out that research. So now we're going to start tying it all together with the global team. So look forward to that coming out soon enough. We're trying to work on that timeline. All right, well, I guess I'll have to let you go. So this has been super interesting, super helpful. Thanks for jumping around industries and the world with me. And next time, we'll have you on sooner. It's been a little while, so apologies for that. No mal intent and when it comes to guest selection. So, Amber, thanks again, and I guess at this point, have a good weekend.
[00:38:34] Speaker B: Great. Thank you. You too.
[00:38:36] Speaker A: All right, take care.
All right. That was great to circle up with Amber. She's doing a lot on the investor front and is really active with a number of different clients. So having her willingness to carve out time me to talk about this is appreciated and I think pretty interesting. We have a lot of discussions exactly like what we just had. She was actually in the office yesterday, and we were kind of throwing things around the horn about things like that. So always interesting. Before we sign off, if you're in Boston, Barcelona, let us know. We'd enjoy the opportunity for a meeting, for example. I think it's probably out on social media anyways, but we met with Korea's k water in Barcelona last week, or I think two weeks ago. At this point, that's a good example of someone swinging by the office, sharing their insights, what they're looking for in the world of water, not just in their own markets, but around the world. Please subscribe to the Future Water podcast and give us a review. We really appreciate it. That's how we know that people are listening, in addition to who's downloading episodes, truth be told, not your names, just the numbers. And then send us a note to water expertsluefieldresearch.com with any topic ideas you'd like us to discuss. We're doing this for you. And lastly, tell a friend about it. If you know someone who's interested in the world of the water, let them know that this is what we're talking about. I'm not going to lie, we don't crush every episode, but some of them are pretty interesting and maybe they align with their interests. So at least give them the option. And then, as I said at the in the intro at the start of the podcast, you can always sign up for Waterline, our weekly quote unquote newsletter, and email alert about what's happening in the world of water. And also, if you're going to be at a number of different conferences or you'd like us to be at a conference, for instance, I'm going to be at the Naqwa event in Buffalo in July that just came across the transom if you're going to be there. But if you'd like us to be at other ones, just let us know. We are more than happy to attend and meet up with you. So this podcast and these water industry insights have been brought to you by the one and only Bluefield research. To learn more about us, visit
[email protected] until we talk again, be well, be safe, and take care.
