UN Sustainable Development Goals – ScanWater

For more than 25 years, ScanWater has worked closely with the water engineering community at NMBU, Ås, regarding the development of circular water and sanitation technologies. ScanWater has identified the following UN Sustainable Development Goals that it is working towards:

•   6 – Clean water and sanitation
• 11 – Sustainable cities and communities
• 13 – Climate action

Information about the strategic approach to these goals can be read below. For information about the goals, see the links above.

ScanWater’s investments in NMBU are primarily related to technology development, project participation, lectures, and student assignments (supervising over 20 master’s theses so far).

According to a SINTEF report, Norway needs to invest 330 billion NOK to upgrade water and sewage pipelines. Additionally, there are plans to expand the pipeline network to connect even more users, which will incur even higher costs. Water and sewage fees are already high and will increase significantly. 330 billion NOK amounts to 60,000 NOK per person. We are concerned about what alternative solutions we can pursue.

Circular technology/economy (circular technology) is decentralized and allows for cost savings while enabling the reuse of nutrients and reducing emissions to water and air.

Circular technology enables us to:

• Reduce water consumption by 90% without sacrificing comfort
• Reduce nutrient emissions (our goal is zero emissions)
• Recycle nutrients for agriculture, not just phosphorus, but also nitrogen and potassium
• Produce bioenergy and biochar
• Develop areas that are not connected to existing pipeline networks
• Save costs

Circular technology will create more conscious consumers and develop a society with much better conditions for handling crises (climate change, natural disasters, sabotage/terrorism, or war). Circular technology offers new opportunities for Norwegian industry with a vast market, especially abroad.

Some of the technologies included have already been delivered in future-oriented projects, and there is a showcase at NMBU. See the links (sieugreen.eu) below to view potential showcases.

For us, it is important to work purposefully to document the effects of a decentralized structure:

• What does such an approach mean for existing water and sewage systems (it reduces the burden on the transport system and treatment plants)
• What savings are expected
• Volumes in both water and nutrients
• Optimal operating conditions
• Service and maintenance

Update history

2024-10-30