Resideo and poli.design marked world water day with 'smart water: sustainable water visions' digital event

Milan, 22 March 2022 –. Today is World Water Day and it is also the day that the second "Smart Water: Sustainable Water Vision" digital event took place. It was an important European platform for dialogue and debate on smart solutions for water resource management.

The digital event was organised by Resideo, a global provider of comfort and security solutions, in collaboration with the Italian University, POLI. design. POLI design is one of the best design universities in the world and is ranked fifth in the QS Ranking 2021 in the Art & Design category.

The theme was Sustainable Water Visions and involved a rich and varied conversation with a leading panel of international experts - moderated by journalist and writer Fabio Deotto - on the importance of the correct consumption and management of water in the residential sector.

Ultimately, there was one goal of the session: to make invisible water stress visible. According to a 2021 report from the World Meteorological Organization of the United Nations (WMO), more than 2 billion people are living in countries under water stress and 3.6 billion people face inadequate access to water at least one month per year¹.

Mario Moura, Resideo's Products and Solutions EMEA Managing Director, opened the event by explaining its importance to Resideo: "In the management of water resources we need to be focused on the development of increasingly smart solutions – both for today and tomorrow's professional installer. By having smart insights, and a broad product range, Resideo can help customers in their journey to be more sustainable by providing them with better control."

Following Mario's opening comments, Piet Dircke, Global Director for Climate Adaptation at Arcadis - a consultancy and project development company in the field of civil and environmental engineering based on sustainability - outlined the challenge of climate change and the importance of resilience in cities. He said: "In a world that is increasingly urban - with buildings and other assets being managed in interconnected and interdependent systems that keep the wheels of society turning - resilience is an essential quality. Climate change also causes sea level rise, which increases coastal flooding, as well as more frequent heavy rainfall, urban flooding and river flooding. All this has a negative impact on the quality of human life".

This was followed by a speech by Renzo Rosso, Professor of Hydrology and Hydraulic Constructions at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (DICA) at Politecnico di Milano, entitled: 'Water for Future, that is not what it used to be'. Renzo's key message was that the role of water has become a keystone of social systems of any geographical scale. He outlined: "The water cycle is the crankshaft of the climate system. The water, food, energy nexus will dictate the agenda of humankind throughout this century."

Andrea Cominola, Assistant Professor of Smart Water Networks at the Einstein Center Digital Future and the Technische Universität Berlin, then looked at the issue of digitising water resource infrastructures to detect anomalies and related risks. Andrea advised: "As part of the digital transformation, technologies such as digital metering and advanced data analytics offer water business and municipalities the opportunity to gain a better understanding of heterogeneous water usage behaviors to support water conservation and focus on customer centric solutions for demand management."

The architect founder of Studio Cardenas Conscious Design, Mauricio Cardenas, followed Andrea by describing the use of water as a functional element in the home and his use and experimentation with natural materials (such as bamboo) in a number of micro-architectures.

To close the event, Erin Woodward, Global Sustainability Leader at Resideo outlined Resideo's approach to sustainability. Erin said: " At Resideo, our focus is on helping our customers keep up with the sustainability megatrends, by utilizing our offerings to better understand, connect, and manage water and energy to make the smartest decisions for their wallets and for the planet."

Overall, it was clear from the Smart Water.Sustainable Water Vision digital event that water is becoming an increasingly essential resource and its scarcity is at the centre of the political agenda and front of mind for decision-makers. Looking to the future, a lot can be done to apply and adapt innovative and smart solutions in residential contexts, in order to preserve and protect this fundamental asset.

¹ https://library.wmo.int/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=21963#.YjIcEHrP3IX

About Resideo Resideo
is a leading global manufacturer and distributor of technology-driven products and solutions that provide comfort, security, energy efficiency and control to customers worldwide. Building on a 130-year heritage, Resideo has a presence in more than 150 million homes, with 15 million systems installed in homes each year. We continue to serve more than 110,000 professionals through leading distributors, including our ADI Global Distribution business, which exports to more than 100 countries from nearly 200 stocking locations around the world. For more information about Resideo, please visit www.resideo.com.