Brazil Collaboration Lab Promotes Innovative Partnerships in Water and Sanitation

(Sao Paulo, 18 November 2014) – The UN Global Compact today launched the Brazil Collaboration Lab to connect companies and organizations of all sizes with a common goal: to develop partnerships and  projects featuring innovative solutions in water and sanitation. The Brazil Collaboration Lab helps interested stakeholders to discover new business and partnership models that are designed to advance innovations that create both social and financial returns. 

Organized by the Global Compact Network Brazil, the UN Global Compact and Venture Partners of Brazil, the event brought together nearly 70 representatives of corporations, social enterprises, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), Government and civil society to discover new business models, meet prospective innovation partners, and access a set of resources designed to support partnership formation and project implementation – with a focus on the importance of water sustainability for both business and society.

Water and sanitation is a priority for the United Nations, which calls on the global community and the private sector to meet the challenge of protecting and improving water quality and sanitation. According to the UN, nearly one billion people lack access to an adequate supply of water.

"This is a great opportunity for inclusion of companies in the local innovation context and can thus increase the impact and the scale of their sustainability initiatives," said Renata Seabra, Executive Director of the Global Compact Network Brazil.

A conversation between Marcos Lisboa Cintra, Vice President, Insper, and Pedro Wongtschowski, Chairman Board of Directors and CNPEM EMBRAPII, opened the debates of the day.  According to Wongtchowski , Brazil has large yet underutilized potential for technological innovation.  Encouraging government innovation in the area of tax regulation for the private sector, Cintra stated, "Brazil needs to improve the business environment with simpler rules and by reducing time-consuming bureaucracy.”

The Potential of Partnerships
To underscore the main theme of the potential of corporate-SME partnerships, presenters from Redox Ambiental, Fluxus Design Ecológico, Natura, Whirlpool and Unilever shared inspirational examples of projects ready for partnerships. Marco Locatelli, Founder and Partner of Redox Ambiental, presented a technique the company developed based on Advanced Oxidative Processes designed to eliminate emerging contaminants of soil and groundwater with higher efficiency and lower cost compared to conventional methods. Also citing lower costs and higher efficiency, Guilherme Castagna, of Fluxus Design Ecológico, presented the company’s work to improve the efficiency of the entire water cycle in architectural projects.

Large companies are taking note of such innovative and efficient processes and are taking steps to encourage their development. A Natura Campus representative discussed their efforts to stimulate open dialogue and innovation in the scientific community. Representatives from Whirlpool and Unilever also highlighted the importance of partnerships to make advances in water sustainability. 

Business Cafes: Finding Synergies
During the afternoon, participants rotated among eight “Business Café” roundtables that covered topics such as research and development, human capital, investment, infrastructure and governance. The sessions enabled participants to start mapping mutual interests in order to develop collaborative and innovative projects.

Ideas for several projects emerged, many focused on education of the public and policymakers, supply chain traceability and the development of accelerators to identify innovative solutions that address specific areas of the water and sanitation value chain. 

Concluding the day, Alexandre Comin, Director of Competitiveness at the Brazilian Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade, shared a positive message regarding performance expectations of the private sector, and noted that the current water crisis in the country reinforces the notion that water and sanitation is also a corporate responsibility.

Over the next few months, the Brazil Collaboration Lab, with the support of facilitators who will provide mentoring, will promote the ideas with the most potential for scale. To support the development of projects, Renata Seabra, of the Global Compact Network Brazil, encouraged participants to join various platforms which support the aim of partnership formation:  the Social Enterprise Action Hub - Gateway 2.0 which connects high-impact businesses to innovative financing options, the Business Partnership Hub which helps members find potential partners, and the CEO Water Mandate which supports companies in their water stewardship efforts.

• Learn more about Social Enterprise and Impact Investing.
• View event photos here.

Contacts

Rosedel Davies-Adewebi
Project Manager, Social Enterprise and Impact Investing
UN Global Compact
rdaviesadewebi@unglobalcompact.org

Julia Tavares
Global Compact Network Brazil
julia.tavares@undp.org