Can a Start-Up Help Companies Monitor and Manage Their Water Use?

  • 30.10.2022
  • New York Times

Waterplan’s software platform integrates public watershed data and customer water use data to help companies in water-intensive industries make sure that their current or future operations are not affected by drought. And, perhaps more important, it helps companies monitor and replenish the watersheds and aquifers on which we all depend. (Waterplan charges an annual software license fee per site, but declined to give specifics on the fee range.)

Mr. Galindo and one of his co-founders, Nicolas Wertheimer, met at the Argentine hub of the World Economic Forum’s Global Shapers program, which brings together young people from different backgrounds to work on social and environmental projects. Mr. Wertheimer had already been working in water stewardship, and Mr. Galindo was a software engineer. They saw that there was a lot of innovation in carbon accounting but not much similar work with water.

Eventually, the information that Waterplan’s platform provides will be required by governments, as regulators around the world begin implementing climate- and nature-related disclosure protocols. Similar protocols, established by the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures, are already mandatory in Britain, the European Union, Switzerland, Brazil, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand and Singapore. And the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has proposed climate-risk disclosure rules that could go into effect by the end of the year.