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Too rich for its own good: Private equity firms form partnership to create products and services platform to take on global water contamination
- January 1, 2020: Vol. 7, Number 1

Too rich for its own good: Private equity firms form partnership to create products and services platform to take on global water contamination

by Kali Persall

KKR and XPV Water Partners, a firm that invests in water-focused companies, have launched a wastewater treatment platform to address water nutrient contamination around the globe.

The platform will aim to create a provider of nutrient management solutions for municipal and industrial wastewater treatment facilities. By reducing pollution and improving water quality, it is expected to deliver measurable progress toward achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal #6, ensuring the availability and sustainable management of clean water.

Nutrients in downstream water bodies have concentrated over the past 50 years, produced by agricultural runoff from increased use of fertilizers, stormwater runoff from more development and rainfall, and wastewater from municipal and industrial plants, according to KKR. A build-up of nutrients can cause toxic algae blooms, causing environmental and economic damage.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, nutrient pollution is one of America’s most widespread, costly and challenging environmental problems, with 53 percent of rivers, 71 percent of lake acres, 79 percent of estuary square miles and 98 percent of great lakes’ shoreline miles classified as impaired.

“The challenges associated with nutrient management are compounding every year,” says David Henderson, partner at XPV Water Partners. “We view the formation of this platform as a game-changing next step in our strategy; to build a global end-to-end supplier of the products and services that municipal and industrial operators need to solve nutrient management challenges.”

The investment is the fifth made out of KKR’s global impact strategy, which focuses on identifying and investing in companies whose core business models contribute to one or more of the United Nations’ sustainable development goals.

 

Kali Persall is a reporter at Institutional Real Estate, Inc. and editor of iREOC Connect.

 

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