Executive Summary
Contact
May Sharif, Managing Director| | +1 607 229 9759
@aguaclaraH2O |
Introduction
AguaClara LLC is a social enterprise born out of Cornell University, where for the past decade the Environmental Engineering program has been producing designs for municipal-scale, nonelectric water treatment technologies. AguaClara is an award-winning program (Tech Awards ’11, Katerva Awards ’13) that was created to deliver safe water on tap to communities everywhere through innovative, affordable solutions.
Since 2005, the AguaClara program at Cornell has designed and helped implement 12 water treatment plants in Honduras, serving 52,000 people in all. In 2013, AguaClara LLCwas founded to provide the professional engineering services required to disseminate AguaClara technologies worldwide. In 2014, AguaClara LLC became a Certified B Corp, and was named to B Corp’s “Best for the World” Overall List in 2015. As part of the company’s first contract, AguaClara supported an Indian NGO in implementing four small-scale treatment plants utilizing various AguaClara technologies to purify water from lowland sanitary wells. The projects were carried out in Jharkhand, India, and serve a total of 2,000 people. As of August 15, 2015, the communities are operating and maintaining the systems independently.
AguaClara’s model for sustainable community-scale water treatment is based on training and capacity building. We partner with in-country experts to develop regional programs, which begin with technology designs that utilize local resources. Then, our partners undergo comprehensive technology training so that they can build, operate, and troubleshoot the systems with increasing independence over time. The partners then take the lead in training community operators to run and troubleshoot plants in addition to working with the community to establish local governance boards responsible for plant management.
Management Team
May Sharif, Founder, Managing Director
B.S. (’10) and M. Eng (’11) from Cornell. Environmental Engineer and with extensive background in AguaClara the theory and design of the technology. Principle project manager for four experimental small-scale technology field pilots in rural India.
Dr. Monroe Weber-Shirk, Director of AguaClara R&D at Cornell University
PhD (’92) in Environmental Engineering from Cornell. Leads research and development of AguaClara technologies in the Civil and Environmental Engineering department through undergraduate and graduate teams. Has lead the invention of multiple municipal-scale gravity-powered water and waste water treatment solutions.
John Finn, PE, Senior Advisor to AguaClara
M. Eng. (’83) in Biological and Environmental Engineering from Cornell. Former Vice President of GEI Consultants, Inc. Expert on team leadership, strategic planning, advising new enterprises, business development, and project management.
Product
AguaClara offers the design services, training, technical assistance, and capacity building required for in-country partners to disseminate our nonelectric water treatment plants (WTPs). Our designs are open-source, and our partners are empowered to collaborate in the design process to develop solutions that best fit their context. Current AguaClara technologies are suitable for communities from 100 to 10,000 households.
AguaClara offers the only practical, sustainable option to treat turbid water at the municipal scale for base of the pyramid communities around the world. Our work is based on the knowledge that maximum impact of safe drinking water is realized when the water comes from a tap at the household. An AguaClara WTP is estimated at half the capital cost and one-third the overhead cost of conventional WTPs.
Our systems are handed over to communities to own, operate, and maintain independently. The cost of running the system includes only the salary of the local operator, and locally-available treatment chemicals. In India, community water boards collect 1 USD per household per month for AguaClara systems, and are still able to maintain savings for future repairs. In Honduras, water boards collect 3 USD per household per month and are able to maintain savings.
AguaClara’s WTPs have a competitive advantage over similar technologies for three main reasons:
- Made from locally available materials – no specially manufactured parts or international supply chain; replacements are inexpensive and can be managed locally
- Simple to operate – only requires one operator at any given time and community members with a 6th grade education successfully operate the plants
- Powered by gravity – produces the highest quality drinking water consistently without any electrical input
For more information on how the technology works and to see photos of the WTPs in the field, please visit our website at
Customers
Our target customers are:
- Municipal and national governments
- International development organizations, NGOs, nonprofits, and CSR initiatives
- In-country engineering and manufacturing firms
Past and present customers include: 11 municipal governments throughout Honduras, Rotary International (US and Honduran clubs), the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, and the Tata Cornell Initiative. Our involvement in community mobilization and the proven effectiveness of our technologies has made our partners willing to pay for our services. More importantly, members of the communities we serve are willing to consistently pay tariffs for direct access to clean water via AguaClara facilities.
Customers
Conventional WTPs designed to treat turbidity represent our direct competition. While conventional systems of similar size have proven to be unsustainable in the kinds of communities we work in, they are nevertheless still being implemented. A side-by-side comparison would show that an AguaClara plant is more affordable to build and maintain, easier to operate, and less vulnerable to a range of failures from broken parts to power outages.
Decentralized models, such as water kiosks, LifeStraws, or household biosand filters, represent another form of competition. We differentiate from these models because we provide a solution that can be integrated into tap supply infrastructure. This means, communities with AguaClara systems can bathe their children and wash their drinking glasses with safe water, minimizing contamination pathways. Additionally, for communities where tap supply is feasible, our municipal scale systems can provide water at a lower cost per liter than decentralized options.
Key market drivers include:
1)Groundwater scarcity leading a shift to surface water
2)Prevalence of certain water quality issues over others (e.g. turbidity vs. heavy metal or chemical contamination)
3)Decisive evidence showing “improved water sources” as defined by the UN either do not actually provide clean water on a consistent basis
Operations/Distribution
We offer a range of services through different channels, including:
Project Engineering Services (Tested and successfully executed in India)
- In collaboration with a local implementation partner, we offer the full package of design, fabrication, construction, training, and monitoring and evaluation services to the project owner.
- The “project owner” is regarded as the customer – typically a municipal government or a development organization
Customers in this segment are acquired through rigorous sales efforts, a broad-based marketing strategy, including direct solicitation, (social media, tabling and presenting at conventions/conferences, and through the Cornell University network), and by competing for RFPs, competitions, and other project funding opportunities. Typically, a team of 1-2 AguaClara engineers per project will need 6-8 months in order to effectively deliver these services on the ground, depending on the scale of the WTP and capability of the local partner.
Long-term Technical Assistance (Not yet tested)
- Because our designs are open-source, our model hinges on building capacity of our in-country partners to allow them to disseminate the systems with increasing independence. To give our partners confidence in carrying out implementations independently, we offer a service contract over a limited period to AguaClara designs that have been executed without on-the-ground assistance from our engineers. If the partner is unable to troubleshoot an operational issue over the course of the service contract, we will visit the site to assist the partner.
- Long-term technical assistance may take on forms other than a service contract. AguaClara may offer post-startup support to partners with whom there is a revenue-sharing agreement. AguaClara may also offer active partners a network membership, where for an annual fee they get access to our long-term support services.
Customers in this segment would come from long-time partners who have demonstrated competence in executing the technology.
Exclusive Fabrication Contracts (Not yet tested)
- Some AguaClara technologies may be pre-fabricated by local manufacturers. AguaClara may offer a fabrication contract over a limited time period, where we exclusively train one manufacturer to produce and test the purchased design in exchange for either a revenue-sharing agreement or a prepaid royalty.
- In the event that manufacturers are unwilling to enter into a revenue-sharing or prepaid royalty agreement, AguaClara would be free to train multiple and competing manufacturers to mass-produce the technology, thus enabling the company to continue to earn revenue for the capacity building services.
Customers in this segment will come from direct solicitation of manufacturers. From initial sales efforts, we have found that manufacturers are interested in mass-producing our Enclosed Stacked Rapid Sand Filters and Chemical Dose Controller technologies.
Consulting (Currently being tested with MWH in the US)
- Provide environmental engineering consulting services ranging from appropriate technology selection to designing testing protocols to retrofitting conventional WTPs
- Provide broader WASH consulting related to community mobilization, technology selection, and project execution
Customers in this segment include private engineering firms, NGOs, bilateral funders (Asia Development Bank, World Bank), and policy makers. Current marketing efforts for this segment will be limited as we try to assess the opportunities and value added.
Impact – Social
Our goal is to dramatically reduce morbidity due to waterborne diseases around the world through technology that is simple, affordable, and serves entire communities. We look for significant decreases in the under-5 mortality rate and the incidence of diarrhea, E. coli, cholera, and dysentery within 1-2 years of the WTP’s operation. Additional outcomes include increases in disposable income, productivity, and civic engagement. In cases where the WTP comes online with new tap supply infrastructure, we look for more free time for women who were previously collecting water from distant sources, and increased attendance of girls in schools.
We believe that by mobilizing community-scale projects, we increase the likelihood of creating an equitable, lasting solution for access to clean drinking water. Access to clean water is a vital service and a human right, but decentralized solutions do not reflect that. We developed this technology because we see humanity as a collection of communities, and thriving communities share the burden of those most critical needs together.That is why a key component of our theory of change is involving members of the community in every aspect of the project, from voting on the new water tariff to participating in construction to being trained as the plant operators. We subscribe to the notion that to achieve long term success, locals must have equity in the project from the beginning.
Impact – Scalability
Honduras: 12 full-scale WTPs serving an estimated 52,000 people nationwide
India: 4 small-scale WTPs serving an estimated 2,000 people in the state of Jharkhand
Our path to large scale dissemination hinges on an aggressive sales push within our target markets. In India in particular, private, public, and philanthropic investment in water treatment infrastructure is on the rise. Between 2014 and 2015, the Indian government plans to spend 3.6 Bn USD on drinking water for rural India.[1] With AguaClara’s reputation in the Indian water sector, the backing of the Cornell University brand, and our ability to deliver uniquely affordable and sustainable solutions to communities that are often considered unreachable, we are confident that we can scale quickly with the funding to hire local sales reps and bolster our on-the-ground engineering team.
Impact – Financial Sustainability
Services
Our engineers bill by hour for their services. This rate is set at a base level that is competitive with a country’s local engineering services plus a premium reflecting our engineers’ specialized expertise. Historically, the cost of our services amounts to approximately 25% of the total project budget.
Designs
We also charge for designs, based on the time and innovation required to complete a particular work. The design process is simplified by use of our Automated Design Tool, (previews of designs may be found online at implementation/design/) allowing us to reduce costs for smaller communities if required. For technologies that can be prefabricated and mass-produced, we may bundle the design cost with prepaid royalties.
Risks
The biggest risk we face is the open-source nature of the technology. AguaClara’s work is protected by the Creative Commons Atrribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International Public License, which allows users to utilize any work freely, but prevents them from patenting improvements or innovations on the work. The fact that we are open-source pushes us to be leaders in the industry by continually innovating and improving our technology through our partnership with Cornell University.
While it is possible that manufacturers or other firms may take the risk in attempting to implement our technologies independently, it would be more affordable for them to partner with us due to gained efficiency. The operation of our systems may be simple, but the engineering is sophisticated enough to allow us to design entirely new technologies at smaller scales than others have been able to design. Even though the AguaClara program has partnered with the same NGO in Honduras for a decade now, and they have demonstrated impressive competence in the technology, they still see the value in our expertise and prefer to work with us by their side.
Contact
[1] Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation allocated 1.8 Bn USD between 2014 and 2015, and expects an equal contribution from states