Working Towards an Enduring Water Future
Echo River Capital’s (ERC) vision for the future is living in freshwater harmony with nature, made easier through technology. In its inaugural impact report, ERC shares market reflections and 2023 impact results from its portfolio based on a reporting approach that connects company outputs to human health and climate and water resiliency outcomes.
A message from Managing Partner, Peter Yolles
In 2023, advancements in water technologies fighting climate change took centerstage, with increased interest from the investment community & wider adoptionfrom the private and public sector.
Inaugural Impact Report
From working with newly minted PhDs commercializing discoveries to implementing water-saving technologies on the world’s largest farms, the water tech space has seen increased interest and rapid innovation in the past year.
This emerging investment landscape makes impact reporting imperative and calls for a standardized approach to be embraced by funds and founders alike. Reporting is also crucial for ERC to ensure that capital is effectively allocated to initiatives that will flow toward a future inharmony with nature.
ERC’s inaugural impact report highlights industry observations from 2023,captures initial impact results from portfolio companies, and projects an ambitious and remarkable fund-wide future of sustainability
Promising Advancements in 2023
2023 was marked by technological advancements that made practices imagined decades ago a reality.
Detection and removal of water quality contaminants improved from parts per million (ppm) to parts per trillion (ppt), enabling unprecedented potential to remove per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) from drinking water that has led to public health concerns.
For the first time since reverse osmosis filtration was invented nearly five decades ago, the use of smart, digital membranes promised new methods for effective desalination, bringing our goal of producing decentralized freshwater at scale within reach. Advancements in AI and machine learning expedited efforts to digitize the water cycle and, in turn, provided data required for effective and predictive water management and a deeper understanding of water cycles in nature.*
Beyond technological advancements, both industry and governmental leaders have responded to water’s relationship to climate change and made commitments to mitigate and adapt to global changes.
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Tech giants like IBM, Microsoft, and Amazon set new waterpositive targets like reducing and replenishing water usage for cooling data centers. The Klamath River dam removal project was designed to improve water quality, increase biodiversity, and protect tribal cultural and ecological heritage. Significant progress continued stemming from the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which marked the largest water-related investments in American history with $50 billion allocated to upgrading water infrastructure in the U.S.
2023 IMPACT RESULTS
30,959,872 m³
WATER SAVED
74,761
MTCOâ‚‚e GHGs AVOIDED
197,823 m³
WATER TREATED
26,695
kWh ENERGY SAVED
70% of climate change’s insurable impact comes from water, but only 2% of climate-related funding is invested in water tech.
Even with this progress, 2023 served as a sobering reminder of the increasingly urgent global climate challenges. ERC is responding by deploying capital with the necessary pace, scale, and compassion to achieve water and climate resiliency for both people and nature
Challenges
Despite the emergence of new technologies, problems of having too much water from increasing rainfall and flooding or too little water from droughts and water scarcity persists. This reality can be traced across the globe. Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Dubai suffered from unpredictable monsoons and deluges. U.S. cities like Flint, Jackson, Buffalo, and Houston faced barriers to accessing safe drinking water and mitigating flooding from deluges.
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No matter how many band-aid solutions are provided, until there is greater private and public investment in innovation, headlines will feature catastrophes instead of abundance.
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​Solutions are apparent, so where is the change? At ERC, demonstrating change through impact is the best way to contribute to creating the evidence that will drive enduring, consistent improvement. The evidence will overcome risk aversion and hesitation from fully adopting new technologies that lead to new ways of working. It’s time to move beyond endlessly piloting proven technologies and to embrace the notion of continuous and iterative improvements.
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What needs to happen? Climate-driven investors should accelerate investment in water tech to be proportional with its potential impact. Today, water tech accounts for 1-2% of climate investments despite being responsible for 10% of global GHGs and 70% of climate change’s insurable effects.
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We are optimistic that this will happen based on interest we’ve seen and evidence from Morgan Stanley’s 2024 investment report, which found that individual investors now rank “water solutions” at the top of sustainability areas in the EU and U.S.
Moving Downstream
Many portfolio companies are focused on strengthening their product-market fit and scaling adoption in their respective markets. ERC is backing these teams with increased investment in adapting to the effects of climate change and mitigating emissions driving climate warming. This requires extensive knowledge of the sources of carbon emissions in the water cycle, a willingness from the private sector to “de-water” business practices, and an embrace of “the innovation economy.”
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ERC is proud and honored to invest in founders who have the ambition and skills needed to create solutions for a new water-critical economy. It is also thankful for a passionate community of advisors, LPs, co-investors, and fellow water enthusiasts.
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Sincerely,
Peter Yolles, Echo River Capital Founder &
Managing Partner
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ERC is making the reporting methodology available to other funds without charge. Please reach out to impact@echorivercap.com for access to a guide and templates to enable your fund to report on your impact.
INVESTMENT THESIS
ABOUT ECHO RIVER
ERC is an early-stage venture capital firm investing globally in cutting-edge water technologies. The fund was established in 2021 by Peter Yolles, managing partner and entrepreneur with successful exits and 30+ years of experience in water tech.
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ERC’s purpose is to support diverse founders and innovations with the highest potential to tackle the adverse impacts of climate change and revolutionize how we use water.
Target Outcomes
In addition to achieving market-rate, non-concessionary returns, we are focused on investments that generate significant water-related benefits to the environment, human health, and climate resilience. Many of the goals of UN SDG 6 are considered through our investment thesis.
Human Health
Climate Resilience
Water Resilience
Theory of Change
Our investment thesis centers on the 3Ds of water technology: digitize, decarbonize, and decentralize. Each goal cuts across industries and geographies.
Digitize (50% of investments)
Using tech like sensors, satellites, and data analytics to digitize, monitor, and manage water resources more effectively, improve predictions, and support conservation efforts
Decentralize (27% of investments)
Shifting to local water collection, treatment, and management, empowering communities to sustainably manage water resources and reduce reliance on centralized infrastructure.
Decarbonize (23% of investments)
Reducing carbon emissions from water management processes by utilizing energy-efficient technologies, renewable energy sources, and sustainable practices.
Read more about the 3Ds of water tech here.
INVESTMENT THESIS
IMPACT FRAMEWORK
When investing in the 3Ds of water tech, ERC focuses on startups that have clearly defined impact goals and understand how to scale their businesses while prioritizing sustainable operations. As part of this approach, ERC invests in ventures that drive positive social outcomes and avoid solutions that seek to primarily enable extractive industries.*
1
INPUTS
What resources have been used for business activities?
Companies are asked to evaluate how resource intensive their business is and develop plans to improve efficiency as needed.
2
OUTPUT
What are the measurable, immediate results?
Companies report on quantitative output metrics (3) that result from their products or services and can be tied to broader outcomes (see right). Founders commit to reporting through ERC’s Impact Letter.
3
OUTCOME
What broader changes come from these results?
ERC determines the achieved short to medium-term effects of the company outputs on key entities, from local communities to ecosystems.
4
IMPACT
What is the longterm societal or environmental significance?
ERC assesses how outcomes tie to regional and global goals defined by SDGs and other reputable benchmarks, in addition to the fund’s target outcomes.
EXAMPLE APPLICATION | CityTaps
*Solutions that enable extractive industries include, for example, water treatment of produced water in oil & gas.
Software and hardware for Pay-as-you-Consume (PAY-C) solution and Smart metering
1. INPUTS
2. OUTPUTS
New homes receiving piped water
3. OUTCOME
Number of people accessing reliable drinking water at home and associated health benefits
4. IMPACT
Contributions towards achieving SDG 6.1 (safe and affordable drinking water)
INVESTMENT THESIS
STANDARDIZING REPORTING
To enable a consistent and comparable evaluation of water-related investments, it is essential to establish standardized principles that facilitate "apples-to-apples" comparisons across individual companies, investments, and funds. Third-party verification of reported impact metrics can also be beneficial for ensuring alignment with standardized methods and principles.
IMPACT METRIC “NUMERATOR”
The following includes big picture considerations for ensuring proper reporting
Baseline Comparison: Measure impact as "improvement from baseline," where baseline (previous practice) is clearly defined and measured. This requires precise definitions (e.g., Carbon Disclosure Project).
Best Practice Alignment: Cite sources for standard techniques common in the ESG community and note any deviation with clear logic for any future changes.
Transparent Reporting: The logic behind calculations should be clearly outlined and any assumptions or uncertainty documented to ensure the right level of rigor and sound data collection techniques.
IMPACT METRIC “DENOMINATOR”
The following outlines ways to normalize impact data for accurate comparisons
Baseline Comparison: Collect data over a specific time frame (e.g., daily, annual, or cumulative over the life of a product or company) to ensure consistency and avoid noise.
Operational Benchmarking: Use consistent operational metrics to properly reflect the scale and scope of operations (e.g., water savings per unit of product produced).
Financial Normalization: Assess which valuation methods would be appropriate for normalizing impact (e.g., water savings per million dollars of revenue generated/EBITDA) and level of investment
2023 IMPACT
IMPACT MADE IN 2023
35%
PORTFOLIO OUTSIDE OF U.S.
24
COUNTRIES SERVED
IMPACT | Stemming from our framework, portfolio companies tie outputs (see right) to SDGs to assess impact. Impact metrics from our portfolio are most concentrated in SDG 6 at 28%, SDG 12 at 32%, and SDG 13 at 10%.
30,959,872
CUBIC METERS OF WATER SAVED
The equivalent of 12,387 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
197,823
CUBIC METERS OF WATER TREATED
The equivalent of 395,856,598 standard water bottles
74,761
METRIC TONS OF GHGs AVOIDED*
The equivalent of 220,527,930 miles driven by a passenger car.**
25,695
kWh OF ENERGY SAVED
The equivalent of 17,844 standard light bulbs for one day.
OUTPUT | The above metrics capture reported outputs from portfolio companies in 2023.
*Standard water bottle is 16.9 fluid ounces. **Assumes 30 MPG
2023 IMPACT
71,393
PEOPLE DIRECTLY IMPACTED
67
TONS OF SINGLE-USE PLASTICS AVOIDED
607,987
CUBIC METERS OF DRINKING WATER SUPPLIED
OUTPUT | ERC’s portfolio includes startups that have a direct impact through their business operations and outputs as captured above.
Measured Outputs
ERC’s portfolio companies are measuring and reporting impact against the below metrics, with a high concentration in GHGs avoided and water saved.
Note: There are additional contributions being made; however, these are the ones chosen for reporting.
PORTFOLIO BREAKDOWN
OVERVIEW OF FUND I
ERC has invested in a range of early-stage startups across the globe, specializing in industries from agriculture to hospitality and successfully demonstrating that impact-oriented ventures are worth funding with 6 successful follow-on rounds for ERC’s portfolio companies in the first year of the fund.
SINCE ERC FOUNDING IN 2021
AS OF JULY 2024
22
ACTIVE INVESTMENTS IN EARLY-STAGE CLIMATE TECH VENTURES
$3.6M
ASSETS UNDER MANAGEMENT (AUM)
11
ACTIVE INVESTMENTS FOCUSED ON
DIGITIZING
6
ACTIVE INVESTMENTS FOCUSED ON DECENTRALIZING
5
ACTIVE INVESTMENTS FOCUS ON DECARBONIZING
GLOBAL FOOTPRINT
With eight companies based outside of the U.S., ERC’s portfolio is directly tackling the most pressing global water challenges.
WHO WE’RE INVESTING IN
Building urban water resiliency through digital tools that expand green stormwater infrastructure
Green Stormwater Retrofits
Destroying dangerous contaminants
in water at an industrial scale through its proprietary electrochemical processes
Water Treated
PFAS Destroyed
People Impacted
Addressing freshwater scarcity with carbon nano-tube coated Reverse Osmosis (RO) & Nanofiltration (NF) membranes for desalination
Water Produced
Energy Saved
GHGs Avoided
Making modern-day farming less water and energy intensive with data mining techniques that improve results and profits
Water Saved
Energy Saved
GHGs Avoided
Bringing running water to urban homes through cash collection and non-revenue water tools by aligning utility and end-user incentives
Drinking Water Supplied
People Impacted
Using the natural power of minerals to treat wastewater and store CO2 permanently through its proprietary weathering technology
GHGs Avoided
Carbon Removal Credits
Water Treated
Solving the urban water crisis with an IoT water management platform that enables water recovery and reuse
Water Saved
Sewage Avoided
Decentralizing water treatment and reuse systems with on-site solutions that increase sustainability and water resilience in the built environment
Water Treated & Reused
Recovered Energy
Converting agricultural waste into biocarbon that can sequester carbon and filter water with a range of applications
Carbon Sequestered
Water Treated
Providing digitals tools needed to autonomously measure and monitor water quality and rapidly detect emerging risks
Water Monitored
Water Quality Samples
Hyperspectral Samples
Protecting communities from future flooding with advanced sensors and data monitoring that provide actionable data and insights
Coastal Sites Monitored
Hours of Monitoring
Digitizing irrigation systems to optimize lawn growth while cutting water usage in half
Water Saved
Providing advanced nanobubble technology and oxygen-infused water systems to enhance water quality and efficiency
Water Treated
Assessing reservoir emissions and providing mitigation strategies to help water and electric utilities reach net-zero targets faster
Water Monitored
Energy for Green Finance
GHGs Avoided
Creating software solutions to reduce the amount of single-use packaging being produced and passing through waterways
GHGs Avoided
Single-Use Packaging Avoided
Eliminating behavioral waste with shower sensor technology that reduces hot water & embedded energy usage from hotel guests
Water Saved
Energy Saved
GHGs Avoided
Developing software that enables farms to easily manage, monitor, and report on their water use efficiency
Water Saved
Energy Saved
GHGs Avoided
Producing 100% renewable water by using inexhaustible atmospheric moisture and renewable energy to create high-quality drinking water
Water Saved
Single-Use Packaging Avoided
GHGs Avoided
Using smart devices to add a layer of intelligence to existing farm systems to make more food and save resources like water
Water Saved
Fertilizer Reduced
Using AI and ML to revolutionize water efficiency processes and help under-resourced utilities prioritize the right assets
Water Saved
Pipes Analyzed
Providing an all-in-one climate platform for companies to measure, respond and
report on changing water risk
Water Replenished
Company
About
Outputs for Assessing Impact
COMPANY FEATURES
Meet ERC Portfolio Founders
The following companies from ERC’s portfolio made significant, positive impact by reducing GHGs, saving water, and using cutting-edge technologies to bring more sustainable solutions to a variety of industries.
COMPANY FEATURES | DIGITAL PAANI
Mansi Jain, Co-Founder & CEO, discussing plans with her team. Photo Credit: Cartier
We’re driven by our mission to protect natural resources from contamination & accelerate the transition to clean cities with abundant water.
Mansi Jain, CEO & Co-Founder
2023 Impact Results*
547,500 m³ of Water Saved
880 MTCOâ‚‚e of GHGs Avoided
365,000 m³ of Sewage Avoided
*Only metrics for 2023. There are many other ways in which the startup is advancing sustainability and improving lives.
Digital Paani is an IoT-enabled platform driving operational excellence to transform how wastewater is treated and reused around the world. The platform was created in 2021 by father-daughter duo Mansi Jain and Rajesh Jain address the unfolding social and environmental crisis in India.
The growing water and health crisis in developing countries is caused by lack of wastewater treatment, where 80% of rivers are polluted by sewage.. The IoT-enabled integrated operations platform is solving this challenge and acting as an expert-based manager for
In India, 80% of water bodies are polluted by sewage and 54% of regions face high water stress.
thousands of decentralized facilities.
Digital Paani not only uses data streams from sensors and microservices to detect and diagnose problems but also manages end-to-end operations, from on-site training to retrofits and physical upgrade identification.
COMPANY FEATURES | EPIC CLEANTEC
Salesforce Tower in San Francisco relies on Epic Cleantec to operate its greywater recycling system; Aaron Tartakovsky with the OneWater™ system
When it comes to how we design our cities, we’ve done things the same way for 200 years. We need to think more seriously about how smart we're going to be with our water.
Aaron Tartakovsky, CEO & Co-Founder
2023 Impact Results*
11,359 m³ of Water Treated & Reused
*Only metrics for 2023. There are many other ways in which the startup is advancing sustainability and improving lives.
Epic's OneWater™ system enables buildings to treat up to 95% of wastewater for reuse—a benefit of decentralized systems
Epic Cleantec's mission is to start a water reuse revolution. Every drop of water we drink, flush, or irrigate has been used before, recycled by Earth’s natural hydrologic cycle.
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Epic Cleantec brings this natural process closer to home, providing onsite water recycling technology to the built environment. They offer the only building-scale water recycling technology that reuses water, heat, and organics from one system. Its solution closes the loop for urban water systems and works seamlessly with existing, centralized water infrastructure, adding resilience to the water grid.
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Epic Cleantec envisions a future where a modern, circular approach to water reuse is the foundation for the next generation of water infrastructure.
COMPANY FEATURES | CITYTAPS
Communities engaging with CityTaps’ smart water meters and water systems
CityTaps’s vision is to provide running water in every urban home through technology that improves the relationship between end-users & water utilities.
Grégoire Landel, CEO & Founder of CityTaps
We do this by re-establishing the flow of money in the opposite direction to the flow of water. This prepayment platform includes a smart water meter and
2023 Impact Results*
607,987 m³ of Drinking Water Supplied
880 MTCOâ‚‚e of GHGs Avoided
*Only metrics for 2023. There are many other ways in which the startup is advancing sustainability and improving lives.
billing software, which together ensure that utilities have the financial means to continue investing in and maintaining the infrastructure while enabling the billion urban people who do not have access to home water to access it sustainably and at a lower cost.
CityTaps’s platform not only provides greater access to drinking water, but it also helps reduce time spent fetching water from wells or
18 cross-border projects with 83% of projects in Africa
public standpipes and improve health outcomes as water stored in tanks of buckets is more prone to contamination. These outcomes are possible because of the localized approach the team has taken by creating the technology in close partnership with developing countries to align incentives and eliminate water scarcity.
COMPANY FEATURES | VERDI AG
Arthur Chen, CEO of Verdi Ag, and Projects in California
We’re focused on using tech to "climate-proof” agriculture and helping solve problems that farmers are starting to face because of climate change.
Arthur Chen, CEO of Verdi Ag
2023 Impact Results*
​8,000 kg of Fertilizer Saved
*Only metrics for 2023. There are many other ways in which the startup is advancing sustainability and improving lives.
1,000+ acres under sustainable management
Verdi Ag is building the world's first truly scalable platform for farm automation, working with the world's largest food brands to grow better and more sustainable crops.
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Its proprietary technology can augment existing and legacy irrigation infrastructure, with capabilities for automation and healthcare at the plant level. With its advanced machine learning capabilities, Verdi’s tech can be tailored to the exact needs of its growers and, as a result, be applied to a wide variety of crops.
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This helps farmers improve crop productivity at scale and de-risk their operations from water scarcity as the effects of droughts and extreme weather events pose unprecedent challenges.
30,000 m³ of Water Saved
3Ds OF WATER TECH
Digitizing the Water Cycle
Today, there are 3 billion people drinking water that poses potential health risks. Contaminated water isn’t a trend specific to developing countries.
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Even in the wealthiest country in the world, at least 45% of U.S. tap water is estimated to have one or more PFAS present.
Water is an analog resource. To manage it, sensors and software are used to digitize water information like quality, flows, and volumes—all vital information for enabling effective planning and management. Historically, investing in this type of technology has been slow due to deep-rooted risk aversion within utilities or larger entities who could greatly benefit.
However, the pace of investment is accelerating with enormous innovation and growth spurred on by earlystage founders like those in ERC’s portfolio. They are commercializing technologies such as sensors and artificial intelligence methods that can anticipate rising water levels and IoT devices that optimize use and stop water waste.
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​Just this year, the global market for digital water
solutions reached $40B, with demand cutting across geographies and use cases.
Digitizing the water cycle is absolutely critical for innovators and companies to gain a better understanding of trends today and to predict outcomes in the future. ERC sees the greatest potential for digitizing the water cycle and positively impacting communities through the following areas:
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Optimizing water usage with applications of advanced analytics in industries that are extremely water intensive like agriculture and semiconductor fabrication
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Providing more accurate and real-time insight into water levels through disruptive sensors and software
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Predicting leaks and system failures to make water management systems more resilient and affordable
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Detecting the presence of contaminants and changes in water quality through cutting-edge sensors
ERC Portfolio Companies
Note: This highlights ERC’s portfolio companiesmost predominately driving impact in thiscategory—there may be overlap with othercategories where startups are also contributing.
3Ds OF WATER TECH
Decentralizing the Water
Cycle
While centralized water systems built in 20th century cities made sense because of economies of scale, regions across the world are now are starting to understand that many have reached their limits due to land constraints, greenhouse gas emissions, and technology choices.
ERC Portfolio Companies
Note: This highlights ERC’s portfolio companiesmost predominately driving impact in thiscategory—there may be overlap with othercategories where startups are also contributing.
4% of energy use in the U.S. comes from moving, heating, and treating water.
In drier states like CA, water use accounts for 19% of total electricity consumption.
The cities of tomorrow must adopt decentralized solutions to address water scarcity, onsite reuse, and emerging contaminants.
Not only do centralized systems disproportionally benefit dense populations, but they are more susceptible to system failure and use excessive energy to convey water and wastewater—an unsustainable path as the disastrous effects of climate change intensify.
The concentrated nature of these systems means that ~2.4B people will continue to live in water stressed regions unless they invest in community centric or onsite water technologies that enable effective and affordable collection and recycling of water resources.
Since less than 1% of the water in the world is available fresh water, the need to invest in a decentralized system becomes even more urgent.6 ERC is focused on generating the greatest impact by investing in the following areas:
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Making water recycling and reuse onsite possible with simple, turnkey solutions that matches water quality availability with needs
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Developing flexible, integrated technology that can be deployed quickly with little upfront investment
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Creating platforms that align incentives of regulators, investors, utilities, and end-consumers to ensure traction of decentralized solutions
3Ds OF WATER TECH
Decarbonizing the Water Cycle
Agriculture alone uses over 70% of
the freshwater available in the world.
From what people eat to what they wear, life on earth is inextricably tied to water. The overreliance on and mismanagement of water is embedded into the systems that make the world turn round. For example, growing a single avocado requires 19 gallons of water while producing the cotton for just one pair of jeans requires 2,900 gallons of water.
What is already a scarce resource has become even more depleted given how critical water is for resource intensive yet life-sustaining industries like agriculture, which ensure human survival but also use over 70% of the freshwater available in the` world.
This calls for the more responsible and strategic management of water, not just for the sake of mitigating issues of water scarcity but also for reducing direct emissions from human activity.
Key contributors of GHGs in the water sector include but are not
7, 8
9
limited to treatment of wastewater treatment and development of man-made bodies of water like reservoirs, which accounted for 3.5% and 1.3% of global GHGs respectively—the former of which is 2.3X more than that of Canada’s total emissions.
The effect of GHGs on changing the water cycle is evident as the frequency of flooding and rainfall in some regions increases inline with droughts and water scarcity in others— much of which can be reduced and mitigated through emerging technologies.
As an impact investment fund, ERC is encouraged by related regulatory change; however, the most promising progress will likely come from the private sector, which can more quickly drive the “innovation economy.” ERC is focused on investing in hardware and software solutions like the following:
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Creating more efficient, data informed systems to reduce water usage in industries like agriculture or de-watering industrial processes like manufacturing
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Building platforms that connect relevant parties for monitoring and reporting emissions in Scope 3 and 4 supply chains
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Reducing or capturing direct emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide from water-related activities like agriculture and rivers
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Using nature-based solutions to avoid and sequester greenhouse gas emissions
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Developing more energy efficient technologies to promote reuse at-scale
ERC Portfolio Companies
Note: This highlights ERC’s portfolio companiesmost predominately driving impact in thiscategory—there may be overlap with othercategories where startups are also contributing.
LOOKING FORWARD & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ERC is eager to build upon impact made by portfolio companies in 2023 as part of the fight against climate change. We believe that future reporting will enable us to be more ambitious and clearer with how we measure and track progress, ultimately guiding areas of investment and modeling an approach for all investors in the water tech industry
ERC’s Forward-Looking Target Areas for Investment
In future reporting periods, ERC will benchmark portfolio outcomes against the below target areas, which align with key SDGs:
Conservation, treatment and reuse of water globally (SDG 6)
Reduce water and pollution in consumption and production (SDG 12)
Mitigation of, and adaptation to, global GHGs (SDG 13)
ERC Milestones
ERC recently achieved B Corp Certification status from the nonprofit B Lab. As a trailblazer in the impact investing sphere, we walk together with 8,000 fellow certified B Corps spearheading a global movement towards a regenerative, sustainable and equitable economy.
ImpactAssets recognized ERC for the first time as an Emerging Impact Manager, joining the leading impact asset managers globally. Its 2024 list was composed of 155 impact fund managers selected from an unprecedented 343 applications.
Impact Report Contributors
In addition to Peter, these summer associates contributed meaningfully to the development of Echo River’s impact measurement framework & reporting.
​Elizabeth Farlow
​Echo River Capital Summer Associate in 2024
Elizabeth led the data collection and analysis, partnering closely with ERC’s portfolio companies to determine the right reporting metrics. She also spearheaded the development and design of this report.
Yoanna Lazarova
​Echo River Capital Summer Associate in 2023
Yoanna led the development of the impact framework and related research efforts to ensure a standardized, credible approach. She also kicked off the process with many founders.
Abby McGuckin
Echo River Capital Summer Associate in 2022
​Abby led the research into designing a bespoke impact methodology for early-stage investing in companies that had not yet commercialized their technologies.
ERC Reporting Methodology
To arrive at ERC’s estimated 2023 impact results, we worked closely with 18 portfolio companies to align methodologies for calculating results based on their operations and available data. The collection and reporting of the portfolio data highlighted in this report are based on what companies submitted. ERC performed sensitivity analysis and benchmarking to check the validity and accuracy of these metrics. In addition to understanding a company’s inputs and outputs, consideration of UN Sustainable Development Goals, IRIS+ Metrics, SASB standards, and the EPA’s Clean Water Act was used to inform which metrics are most relevant for impact and quantifiable. If you have any questions regarding calculations or approaches to quantifying certain outputs, contact
What’s Next?
Setting fund-wide cumulative targets
1 Gigaton GHGs Mitigated
1 Cubic Kilometer Saved or Treated
In future editions of the annual impact report, Echo River will delve further into the outcomes and impacts that are generated from the “outputs” described in this initial report.
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Additionally, fund-wide targets over the life of the fund will be determined and measured. For now, preliminary fund-wide targets include annual goals of one Gigaton (GT) CO2e avoided & one cubic kilometer (km3) of water saved or treated.
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1GT = 1 Billion metric tons CO2e
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1 km3 = 1 billion cubic meter H2O
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Future impact reporting will strive to incorporate more geographic data to determine contributions to reducing water stress, risk, and conflicts in specific watersheds as measured by World Resources Institute's Water Risk Atlas and others.
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Lastly, in future years, Echo River aims to draw stronger connections to globally-recognized benchmarks like Sustainable Develop Goals 6: Clean Water & Sanitation, and 13: Climate Action. These efforts aspire to measure progress towards Echo River's mission of living in freshwater harmony with nature.