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Digital Water: Key Trends, Project Activity, and Market Outlook, Q3 2022 

The US$25.9 billion global digital water market has faced significant headwinds throughout 2022, including ongoing supply chain disruption, rising prices and interest rates, COVID-19 lockdowns in key markets, and the destabilization caused by the Russia-Ukraine war. These challenges have driven a broad downturn in M&A and VC activity across countries and industries, impacting digital water companies despite steady growth in projects and investments. 

Climate Risk 

Water and climate are inextricably linked. From the 1970s to the 2010s, the world has seen an eightfold increase in economic losses from climate-related disasters including drought, stormwater flooding, algae blooms, and winter freezes. The increasing financial and societal impacts, stretching from Cape Town to California, pose significant risks to municipal and corporate entities, globally.

Adapting to this new ‘normal’ requires significant changes for cities and municipalities. Stakeholders are targeting their carbon footprints to minimize the water sector’s footprint—2% to 3% of global emissions—to adopting mitigation strategies like water reuse, energy microgrids, and digital tech.  In this context, climate change is driving unprecedented global opportunities for a range of technology & service providers and business models.

U.S. & Canada Pipe Market Overview – Plastic Pipes Institute 

Bluefield's water experts presented on the state of the U.S. & Canada pipe market, infrastructure funding, and market outlook at the Plastics Pipe Institute 2022 semi-annual meeting in Louisville, KY.

Top Tech Trends to Watch in the Global Water Utility Sector – Xylem Reach Conference 

In a presentation at the Xylem Reach 2022 Conference in Washington, DC, Bluefield's digital water experts highlight the most critical digital technologies shaping the water sector and trends to watch in a fast-changing, global water market.

Next Level Asset Management with MentorAPM Co-founder & CEO Tacoma Zach 

MentorAPM Co-founder & CEO, Tacoma Zach, takes us on a fantastic ride covering asset management and how it helps utilities manage their most important assets. In this session, you’ll learn about...

AMCS Aims to Bridge Water, Solid Waste Silos 

On 13 September 2022, Irish waste management & recycling software solutions provider Advanced Manufacturing Control Systems (AMCS) Group announced its acquisition of Utility Cloud, a U.S.-based digital water software startup.

Water Mergers & Acquisitions: Trends and Deal Flow, Q3 2022 

The pace of global water M&A continues to lag behind 2021, falling back to pre-pandemic levels. To date, Bluefield has recorded 193 deals in 2022—well short of the 511 transactions of the prior year. The annual average over the last six years has been 327 deals, though this is slightly skewed by the past two years’ above-average numbers.

Water M&A, Recent Deals, Trends, and Outlook  

The Bluefield team talks mergers and acquisition trends across the global water sector, providing insight into the slow down of deal flow activity. Reese Tisdale and Steph Aldock discusses the impacts...

Tetra Tech, WSP Vie to Grow Water Footprints 

On 23 September 2022, U.S. engineering firm, Tetra Tech, made an unsolicited offer to acquire U.K.-based RPS Group for US$691 million, outflanking a WSP Global’s prior, competing bid of US$641 million. WSP’s purchase offer for RPS follows a string of large acquisitions. As such, global water sector opportunities for growth are playing a role in the recent flurry of deal flow.

Decoupling Water Rates on California Agenda 

As California doubles down on investments in water supply infrastructure with Governor Gavin Newsom’s new Water Supply Strategy, SB 1469 represents another path to boosting water conservation efforts in the water-stressed state.