Water & Wastewater Asia September/October 2019

50 | COMPANY PROFILE
From Water-
Wise Buildings to
river clean-ups:
Ecosoftt leads the
way in water and
social enterprise
Ecosoftt Co-Founder Marcus Lim accepting the Zayed Sustainability Prize in Abu Dhabi
Local company wins big at sustainability awards, shares plans for future
Local water solutions provider Ecosoftt
has laid claim to various awards and
accolades since its inception in 2012,
but its proudest yet is the prestigious Zayed
Sustainability Prize, which was awarded to
the company earlier this year in Abu Dhabi.
Ecosoftt is the first Singapore organisation
to win the award, and the first company
globally to win in the Water Category, which
recognises impactful and inspirational
initiatives to global sustainable development
challenges.
For Ecosoftt co-founder Marcus Lim, the
prize is a good way to gauge where the
company stands in the industry.
“It’s encouragement that we’re on the right
track because we have a business model
that’s quite unique in the industry”, he said.
“We have a model with for-profit, combined
with not-for-profit activities. Winning this
prize confirms that what we’re doing is
correct, and that there is a big demand out
there. People who value this kind of stuff
that we do.”
Ecosoftt’s unique business model comes
from the fact that the company is also a social
enterprise that brings sustainable solutions
for water and sanitation to underprivileged
communities.
“NO TWO PROJECTS ARE ALIKE”
To date, the company has worked on 50
projects, with “no two projects that are
alike”. One especially notable project that
Ecosoftt embarked on, situated in the holy
city of Omkareshwar in India, along the
Narmada river.
Ecosoftt’s founder Stanley Samuel explained,
“[Omkareshwar] is a holy city more than
14 thousand years old, it’s one of the
significant sites for the Hindu belief, and
here over 200 drains of untreated sewage
just flow into the river. We were able to work
with local communities, intercept the sewage
across the whole terrain and build four used
water reclamation systems.
We used a combination of biological systems
inspired by nature, which are low-energy,
low-chemical and highly efficient in terms
of throughput. We used mediums from the
area itself, and configured the bioreactors
to deliver what is called “fit for purpose” or
quality treated water.
By treating this water, we don’t let the
sewage go into the river, and the treated
water is fed back into the forest. It’s
reforesting the whole ecosystem there and
helping to put the water back into the river
in pristine condition. The beauty of it now is
that since the last three or four years that
we’ve started this project, the river water is
now of potable quality.”
Other challenges faced while working on the
project included the terrain itself. “If you
look at the topography, to do something
decentralised in a mountainous terrain is
quite difficult, but we were able to translate
that challenge into an opportunity by looking
at gravity flow, so there is less pumping.”
Another challenge that the team faced
was the lack of land for infrastructure, but
Samuel recalled how the people grew to trust
Ecosoftt and came together to overcome
Water & Wastewater Asia • September / October 2019