RELX Group Environmental Challenge 2015 shortlists four projects to bring safe water and sanitation to communities around the world
The RELX Group Environmental Challenge 2015 shortlist is announced today, comprising four innovative ideas to provide sustainable access to safe water and sanitation out of the 135 applications received. Final winners will be announced in August and will also be featured in Elsevier’s journal Water Research. The first prize winner will receive $50,000 with $25,000 for second place. All shortlisted candidates will receive one year’s full access to relevant RELX Group publications such as the Journal of Water Research to help them advance their work.
The 2015 shortlisted projects offer a range of affordable and accessible solutions to water and sanitation challenges in the developing world. They include an innovative pump providing clean water for upland communities in Mexico; a filter to sustainably remove arsenic from household water in India; a community-scale sanitation system and micro-business setup in Jamaica; and a technology for converting sea water into drinking water in India.
Dr Márcia Balisciano, RELX Group’s Director of Corporate Responsibility said, “We received an impressive range of applications from 45 countries to address water and sanitation challenges using innovative technology. We felt four were strongest. They aim to benefit local communities in India, Jamaica and Mexico.”
The RELX Group Environmental Challenge prioritises solutions that are replicable, scalable, sustainable and innovative. They must also have practical applicability and involve local communities and other key stakeholders.
Bibi van der Zee, Environmental Challenge judge and Editor of the Guardian’s Global Development Professionals Network, which gives those working and interested in the field access to relevant news, comment, and analysis, said: “The Environmental Challenge celebrates researchers and entrepreneurs who are probing some of the most complex, urgent questions for our time. How do we resolve the urgent global need for accessible sanitation and clean water? We need to find innovative solutions that embed sustainability into human development.”
The 2015 RELX Group Environmental Challenge shortlisted projects are:
- The Alternative Indigenous Development Foundation (AIDFI), an NGO operating as a social enterprise, provides clean drinking water to upland rural areas using a crossbreed hydraulic ram pump. Made from locally-sourced materials, a ram pump uses the pressure of falling water to pump water to villages above a water source, with each pump reaching an average of 600 people. AIDFI has had success in the Philippines, Afghanistan, Colombia and Nepal, assisting some 222,000 people in 370 villages. The prize money would be used to set up a pilot site in Mexico, after training a Mexican technician in the Philippines.
- A research group led by Dr Sirshendu De at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur aims to provide safe drinking water for homes in West Bengal, India where more than 10m people are affected by arsenic contamination. With support from the Environmental Challenge, Dr De’s team will develop, make and install in 500 households activated laterite-based filters which are effective, low in cost, produce waste that is safe for disposal and last for five years without needing to be replaced.
- Metabolic Foundation has developed Fenex, a community-scale sanitation system that combines urine diverting dry toilets with a low-tech bioprocessing unit. Each Fenex unit is built inside of a 6-metre shipping container and serves 110 people. The Fenex system can also be turned into a micro-business that sparks local entrepreneurship as the waste is turned into fertiliser, helping rural farming communities. Metabolic Foundation would use the prize money to test and optimise the Fenex design in Amsterdam with the aim to eventually pilot the system in Jamaica.
- Managed by Devlina Das at VIT University in India, Project “Salino” aims to convert sea water into drinking water using a unique five-step method, powered by solar energy. The project will be carried out initially at VIT University, aimed at India’s semi-arid and arid zones. Project Salino will initially target 50 homes; data from the pilot will be used to scale implementation.
Projects were evaluated by water researchers and a panel of expert judges including Dr Rita Colwell, Distinguished University Professor both at the University of Maryland at College Park and at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health; Dr Mark van Loosdrecht, Professor of Biochemical Engineering, Delft University of Technology; Hanny Mass, Programme Manager of the Dutch WASH Alliance; Dr Prasad Modak, Executive President of the Environmental Management Centre in India; Professor Gang Pan, Research Center for Eco-environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences; and Bibi van der Zee, Editor, Global Development Professionals Network at the Guardian.
To learn more, please visit the Environmental Challenge website. You can see videos of previous winning projects here, and details on RELX Group’s corporate responsibility agenda here.
- ENDS -
Enquiries
Emmy Stevens
[email protected]
+44 (0) 20 7166 5612
Notes to Editors
About RELX Group Environmental Challenge
The RELX Group Environmental Challenge was launched in 2011 to contribute to the Water for Life Decade, an initiative launched in 2005 by the UN General Assembly to halve the number of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015. According to the World Health Organisation and UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme, over 700m people are without safe drinking water, while more than 2.5bn people do not have adequate sanitation facilities. Poor access to safe water and sanitation contributes to health crises in many developing countries, and increasingly leads to violent conflict.
This is the fifth year of the RELX Group Environmental Challenge, and will be marked by a special prize of $20,000 for collaboration projects involving past winners.
About RELX Group
RELX Group plc is a world‐leading provider of information solutions for professional customers across industries. The group employs about 28,500 people of whom half are in North America. RELX PLC the London Stock Exchange listed shareholding vehicle, holds 52.9% of the shares in RELX Group. RELX NV, the Amsterdam Stock Exchange listed shareholding vehicle, holds 47.1% of the shares in RELX Group. The shares are traded on the London, Amsterdam and New York Stock Exchanges using the following ticker symbols: London: REL; Amsterdam: REN; New York: RELX and RENX. The total market capitalisation is approximately €30bn/£21bn*.
*Note: Current market capitalisation can be found at http://www.relx.com/investors
About the Guardian Global Development Professionals Network
The Guardian Global Development Professionals Network offers commentary and insight from development experts across the world. Whatever your professional interest in global development, you'll find it an invaluable source of knowledge and contacts. Register now.