Water
Problem Overview: Low Reuse and Recycling Rates of Wastewater
India generates 72.4 billion liters of wastewater, but only 28% of it is treated and only ~3% is recycled [1,2]. With increasing water stress and falling groundwater levels, there is a need for treatment and reuse of wastewater to meet the demands and improve water security. Additionally, poorly managed water treatment system can result in high greenhouse gas emission, namely as N2O and CH4 emissions. Upcoming regulations on wastewater treatment are focussing on on-site decentralized treatment and reuse mandates. The regulation varies with state and type of industry, but most commercial wastewater generators are required to treat and reuse their wastewater. With current wastewater treatment techno-economics, there are limitations on reuse efficiency and use-cases, which hinder a truly circular water cycle.
Core Bottlenecks: Suboptimal operations and limited reuse options
With the new regulations, bulk wastewater generators (commercial and residential buildings) have adopted decentralized Sewage Treatment Plants, which focus on primary and secondary treatment of water, using technologies like MBBR, SBR or MBR, followed by disinfection and reuse for flushing or irrigation. Users face two key challenges:
1. Biological solutions: Fragile & hard to operate
Microbes often die if there is input fluctuation, delicate membranes are easily destroyed, leading to poor quality of treatment. Operations suffer from severe skill gaps, with operators often not being trained to handle advanced technological solutions. Hence, the systems are not running at their optimal conditions
2. Non-Human Contact Reuse Only
Common solutions only take water to a level of purity suitable for non-human contact uses (e.g. flushing, gardening), not for other uses without the use of RO. This leads to treated wastewater being used for excess irrigation, which is not ideal and does not encourage higher recycling rates. Additionally, many existing facilities do not have alternate flushing lines which further hinders wastewater reuse [3].
Existing Approaches and Technology Readiness
Automation and Optimization
Reduces energy usage, increases water quality
Electrocoagulation
Reduces reliance on biological systems, ensuring reliable & space-efficient operations
Water-less flushing
Reduced water usage to eliminate problem at source
Where is the white-space for innovation?
For India’s climate and water condition, current solutions are not the most effective at managing heat evacuation while maintaining low PUE and WUE. There is a need for passive / low-energy solutions that can cool GPUs with high reliability, low contact risk and reasonable cost or increase. In India, since many data centers are being built from scratch, there is an opportunity to build indigenously relevant solutions. The scope for innovation is on two fronts:
Science Breakthrough
Alternative to RO technology that can achieve low TDS output without reject waste stream.
Engineering Innovation
Space-efficient, odorless, automated decentralized water treatment systems that can reliably produce usable water for reuse beyond flushing & gardening applications.
Business model
Enabling offsite usage for treated non-potable water.
How we identify climate innovation opportunities?
- Gupta, S. et al., 2025, Financing Treated Used Water Reuse in India, Council on Energy, Environment and Water
- Jones, E. R. et al., Country-level and gridded estimates of wastewater production, collection, treatment and reuse, Earth Syst. Sci. Data
- Well Labs, 2025 Report, Strategies to Catalyze Safe, Efficient and Reliable Decentralized Water Reuse
- Calculated based on energy saving from automated systems and reduced pumping energy for water
- Calculated based on reduction in CH4 and N2O emissions, as well as reduced water pumping energy
- Calculated based on adaptation potential from increasing water access
MBR = Membrane Bioreactor, MBBR = Moving Bed Biofilm Reactor, SBR = Sequencing Batch Reactor
Last Updated On: June 5, 2026
Economic Potential
- India, 202581Mn USD[4]
- India, 2030~150Mn USD[4]
Impact Potential
- India, 202555 Mn Mt CO2e[5]
- Lives Impacted~220-540 Thousand people's (annual domestic water supply is 10860 Mn lt)
- India Score9/27[6]
- Hazard
- Exposure
- Sensitivity
- Adaptive Capacity
- Vulnerability
| Low | Med | High |
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Water
Biodiversity
Waste
p-ARL Score
10/12
Regulatory Outlook
Spotlight for innovation in India
Startups
Automating operations to reduce energy and improve quality.
Patented Electrocoagulation system to avoid biological pathways
Waterless Urinal to reduce water usage in flushing