Launched in 2021, Water Canada’s Blue Economy webinar series, now called Water Canada webinars, focuses on expert insights into the state of the water industry in wastewater, drinking water, and stormwater.
Past topics of discussion include:
- What’s Up With PFAS?
- Protecting Our Source Water
- Implementing Green Infrastructure
- Tackling Plastics in Freshwater
- Advancing Municipal Co-Digestion
- Innovation in the Blue Economy
- Ensuring Reliable Access to Safe Drinking Water
- Driving Diversity in Canada’s Water Industry
- Governing a Blue Economy
And More…
Have an idea for an upcoming Water Canada webinar? Reach out to editor Jen Smith at [email protected]
Interested in sponsoring an upcoming webinar or aligning your brand with a specific topic, reach out to Jackie Pagaduan at [email protected]
Upcoming webinar: The Nature of Resilience
Monday, December 4, 2023 | 11 am EST | Register
Description: This 60-minute webinar will offer a project-focused exploration into the affordability and sustainability benefits that natural infrastructure brings to small and medium-sized communities. The session will spotlight a specific project, unpacking the successes, challenges, and future prospects. Experts will share their unique perspectives on how this project serves as a model for communities facing evolving climate challenges.
Past webinar: The Cost (and Value) of Water
Description: After Walkerton, Ontario municipalities were tasked with ensuring their populations had access to clean, safe drinking water systems in a way that was financially sustainable. This meant that in order to protect people, they’d also be responsible for enforcing a program of increased costs for water usage—a trickle-down effect, that some feel is not only warranted, but absolutely necessary in order to combat critical repair deferrals and ensure well-monitored water distribution, while others feel this unfairly targets vulnerable community members. With inflation seemingly on an endless rise, supply chain shortages, and a lack of skilled labour, how can municipalities ensure safe, equitable water delivery and treatment through a utility rate structure that is fair, but also provides the necessary funds for ongoing maintenance and operations?
Past Webinar: What’s up with PFAS?
Description: This webinar will explore questions such as: What are PFAS? How can PFAS get into drinking water? What are the health and/or environmental concerns associated with PFAS? What types of treatment technologies are available?
Past Webinar: Protecting Our Source Water
Description: There are many benefits of source water protection, including the fact that it can help reduce the health risks associated with exposure to contaminated water. This webinar will explore projects and initiatives that have protected our source water while also providing social, environmental, and economic benefits.
Past Webinar: Implementing Green Infrastructure
Description: This webinar will provide examples of initiatives, projects and municipalities that have successfully implemented green infrastructure. In this important discussion, we’ll explore questions such as: What are the key factors that should be considered when implementing projects? What are some best practices? Are there factors that haven’t typically been taken into account, but should be? How can we encourage more municipalities to prioritize green infrastructure?
Past Webinar: Tackling Plastics in Freshwater
Description: While there has been a significant amount of focus on the plastic that ends up in our oceans, we also need to consider the amount of plastic pollution that’s entering our freshwater. This session explored the challenges and opportunities associated with managing plastic pollution in Canada’s freshwater. During the discussion, we considered how plastics were managed in Canada at the time of the webinar, what opportunities there were for improvement, the implications for municipalities, and what technology companies could do to support municipalities.
Watch the Replay: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/betacklingplastics
Past Webinar: Advancing Municipal Co-digestion
Description: Many stakeholders recognize that the amount of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions entering the atmosphere needs to be limited, if not reduced, given the negative implications of global warming. At the municipal level, there’s an opportunity to help reduce emissions by diverting organic waste from landfills to wastewater treatment plants. This is so that the organic waste can be co-digested to produce biogas, which has a number of benefits. Industry experts joined us for a webinar that examined the benefits of municipal co-digestion, explored regulatory requirements and financing options for projects, and provided examples of municipalities that are currently undertaking projects.
Watch the Replay: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/BEMunicipalCodigestion/
Past Webinar: Ensuring Reliable Access to Safe Drinking Water
Description: In Canada, the federal and provincial governments play an important role in setting and updating the guidelines and regulations needed to provide reliable access to safe drinking water. This session explored questions such as: What’s working? What’s not working? What more is needed?
Watch the Replay: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/BESafeDrinkingWater
Past Webinar: Driving Diversity in Canada’s Water Industry
Description: Increasing diversity can help to drive creativity, generate new ideas, and support succession planning. This webinar explored why it’s important to encourage diversity, what the current barriers are, and what strategies can be used to increase diversity.
Watch the Replay: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/bedrivingdiversity
Past Webinar: Innovating in the Blue Economy
Description: Innovation comes from a pressing need, often involves disruption, and is best deployed when there is an urgency for new solutions. As an example, the pandemic forced global governments, health care, and scientific communities to innovate quickly in order to protect ourselves and develop vaccines. Similarly, there is urgency in Canada’s water industry to adopt clean technologies, change our habits, and think outside the box to help provide safe drinking water, more effective wastewater treatment, and better managed stormwater. In this session, we asked questions such as: What drives (or hinders) municipalities to adopt innovative technologies? Who are the champions of water innovation? Where are the projects that demonstrate positive impacts for the communities and companies involved? What’s in the crystal ball for Canada’s Blue Economy in 2026?
Watch the Replay: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/innovateblueecon
Past Webinar: Governing the Blue Economy
Description: Who’s in charge of our water? How can we break down geographical silos and avoid politically influenced water regulation? In order to have a functional and prosperous blue economy, Canada will need to have an alignment between municipal, provincial, and federal policies. Citizen engagement and stakeholder inclusivity will be critical to achieving new governance models that work for the benefit of all Canadians—while also protecting our most valued resource. In our third session of the Blue Economy series, we looked at the existing policy regimes across the country and where new governance structures are being proposed (or are needed). We also looked at how water sector leaders can influence government bodies to make the changes needed to ensure real actions that can drive effective governance of Canadian water in both the short and the long-term.
Watch the Replay: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/governblueecon
Past Webinar: Building the Blue Economy
Description: Following our webinar on “Defining the Blue Economy,” we shifted our focus to “Building” the Blue Economy. Where are the infrastructure demands that can help ensure the Canadian water sector continues to prosper? This session explored how municipalities are moving forward in the face of new and ongoing challenges like public funding, ratepayer demands, and health concerns. How are municipalities managing the operation and maintenance of their existing drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater infrastructure at the same time as building new capabilities and services? Where do municipalities need more support? What are water technology and consulting firms doing to provide solutions that meet the environmental, social, and economic needs of municipalities and their water utilities?
Watch the Replay: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/buildblueecon
Past Webinar: Defining the Blue Economy
Description: Currently, predominant definitions of the term Blue Economy are synonymous with ocean resources. For example, the World Bank defines the Blue Economy as the “sustainable use of ocean resources for economic growth, improved livelihoods and jobs, and ocean ecosystem health.” Our team at Water Canada believes that this definition of the Blue Economy is too narrow and that it needs to be expanded to encompass the broader water sector. During our first webinar in the Blue Economy Webinar Series, we explored why the wider definition is warranted and why it’s important for the future of the Canadian water sector.
Watch the Replay: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/defineblueecon
