[Extract] "We'll take our wastewater, treat it, and give it to you to drink" - Jon Freedman - SUEZ WTS

🎙️ Jon Freedman is the Senior Vice President - Global Government Affairs at SUEZ WTS; he's teaching about the future of Water at the University of Pennsylvania. Starting next spring, he'll also be conducting a class on the business and governance of water at the Wharton School.  What levers can you play on to promote greater water reuse? Well, you can act on the money side of the equation, for instance, by incentivizing the deployment of new technologies through grants and loans. But also by making the wrong behavior more expensive. You want to use your water only once and flush it away? No problem, as long as it becomes expensive - third parties, be it governments, utilities, or agencies, can then make that money work to deploy the technologies I just mentioned. You can also play with regulations. People don't want to reuse? Let's just make it mandatory. Forcing it isn't always the most elegant solution, but it's hard to argue that it doesn't work. Finally, on the total other ends of the spectrum, you can award good pupils with recognition for their right moves. And that is the task Jon has on his plate right now, as he'll explain in a minute with his project of crowning a US Water Reuse champion.  In a world that's never black or white, Jon will guide us through all the shades of gray and all the ongoing and future projects that mix some of these four approaches.  Don't worry; I'll avoid spoiling too much of the thorough review of water reuse policies and their rollout at various scales, and I'll let you dive into my conversation with Jon. Wanna listen to the full episode? Just type "S5E6 - Who will become the US's first Water Reuse Champion Ever?" You can also find the full episode materials on the (don't) Waste Water website               Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.