E.F. Dongwoo Kim, Founder of BKT & Tomorrow Water, Selected as a 'Global Sustainable Leader 100' for Three Consecutive Years
"The Tomorrow Water Project (TWP), which combines sewage treatment plants, biogas production facilities, and data centers all in one physical site, is a new model for building sewage infrastructure in developing countries into the future. It has been very rewarding for us to develop this initiative, as nothing like this has ever existed in the world before.
At BKT/Tomorrow Water, we hold that in the future, industry leaders will be determined not by their size, but by the social impact they create.
To us, the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) initiative is an important strategic tool that guides us in the development of specific technologies and solutions. It isn’t just for the sake of a good optics or publicity.”
-E.F. Dongwoo Kim, Founder of BKT/Tomorrow Water
Q1. On August 30th, the Association for Supporting SDGs for the United Nations, an international non-governmental organization associated with the U.N. Economic and Social Council, announced the 2021 Global Sustainable Leader 100 list. E.F. Dongwoo Kim, founder of BKT and Tomorrow Water, is the first leader of a Korean environmental company to have been selected as a global sustainable innovation leader. This is now his third year receiving this honor. What do you think the reason?
I think the biggest reason is that we have consistently aligned our company’s technology and business development with the U.N.’s sixth SDG, clean water sanitation, since the U.N.’s SDGs were first launched in 2016. Our business activities to promote renewable energy, climate change solutions, smart cities, social infrastructure, and resource reuse are also all related to the UNSDGs agenda.
When it first launched, the official UNSDGs platform received little attention, but now it receives so much attention that it no longer even accepts additional initiative registrations.
BKT/Tomorrow Water is the only company in the Korean environmental sector to have officially registered an initiative on the UNSDGs platform with our Tomorrow Water Project (TWP) and has continued to make efforts to achieve the TWP’s goals. We have used this SDGs initiative as a strategic tool to guide us in the development of specific technologies and solutions, rather than as an impressive sounding declaration of corporate vision or publicity statement.
Our new technologies stemming from this effort are brought to market, and the value of booked projects from them, which in early years was previously $20M to $30M, surpassed $100M for the first time last year and is approaching $150M this year. These new technologies were proven in Korea and the United States, and now they are ready to be deployed in developing countries suffering from water challenges.
Q2. Please explain in detail what the Tomorrow Water Project is. Why did you propose TWP as a UNSDGs initiative?
The TWP (Tomorrow Water Project; UNSDGs initiative #12177) is a new sewage treatment model for developing countries that we officially listed on the UNSDGs platform in 2016.
The TWP model involves our unique sewage treatment plant that addresses several key infrastructure shortfalls in developing countries. TWP combines sewage treatment facilities, biogas production facilities that integrate organic waste, and energy-saving data centers that use wastewater for cooling to simultaneously address water problems, climate change, IT infrastructure, and economic gaps.
It is designed to make substantial and practical progress by improving access to a variety of infrastructure elements at the same time in developing countries, aligning with the UNSDGs slogan, “Leave No One Behind”. I think the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the U.N.’s predecessors to the SDGs, had a positive impact in raising the world’s awareness to environmental and social issues, but failed to make material improvements because of the lack of real, sustainable incentive for the business sector.
We believe it’s important to have a business model that is not focused on monetary greed and can contribute to the world in a meaningful way. For instance, when we started this initiative, an important goal was that we would not compromise on water quality to improve profitability. We aimed to provide water quality to developing countries to the same standards that would be expected in a developed country. We have put a lot of effort into overcoming challenges like this with science and engineering.
Q3. What are the key technologies that are part of TWP? Please explain the development status of related technologies in detail.
We started by developing an integrated model centered on sewage, which is a major business area for us, and the core technologies that we thought were necessary to achieve sewage treatment in a developing nation.
First, we developed the Proteus/BBF technology that separates solids (sludge) contained in wastewater as much as possible. By separating solids and generating biogas, we can use that biogas to create more energy needed for sewage treatment, while minimizing the energy consumed to remove organic matter in subsequent treatment.
Integrating sewage sludge and various organic wastes such as food waste and livestock manure in the same area lets us achieve economy of scale in biogas production, thus attaining independence of sewage treatment plants. This is a good countermeasure to climate change because it converts methane into renewable energy without releasing it into the atmosphere, as methane emitted from landfills contributes 80 times as much to global warming than CO2.
However, this co-digestion created a new challenge by producing high concentrations of nitrogen in the wastewater stream and increased solid waste. To address this we developed AMX, a wastewater nitrogen removal technology that received the Korea Patent Award last year, and Draco, a technology that reduces solid waste and increases biogas production.
Recently, we launched a research facility in the city of Daegu, Korea that is validating the entire process, with funding from the Korean Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy (MOTIE). In addition, we are working with our U.S. entity Tomorrow Water to reduce the time that wastewater treatment takes from six to ten hours down to less than two hours to minimize the cost to construct a sewage treatment plant.
Our Mainstream AMX technology, which has been tested in Los Angeles for more than four years, is now in the final stage of testing, and I'm looking forward to its success.
Our Co-Flow technology (the data center on a wastewater treatment site) was created by considering how to utilize free space created by Proteus/BBF technology, which reduces the size of existing sewage treatment plant sites by 50-80%.
Finally, by building a data center, which consumes substantial energy for cooling, on a reduced footprint site in a sewage treatment plant, we can simultaneously address both the footprint and the energy needed for cooling by using cold wastewater to cool the data center.
The TWP model is a very attractive solution for developing countries who are currently sometimes reluctant to build adequate sewage treatment plants because of the costs and challenged related thereto.
Q4. Among water treatment companies, you are the first to apply artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to traditional water industries. What is your ultimate goal with Water AI?
We have the ability to design, construct, and operate the entire TWP process, including the core technologies required for sewage treatment, biogas production and sludge treatment, and we have executed total sewage treatment process projects in the past. However, these solutions are traditionally implemented through the steps of proposal, design, construction, and operation. The problem is that no matter how good the solution is, it takes a lot of time and money to deliver it, which puts logistical and economic burdens on developing countries.
To address this, even before TWP we have been working to apply digital technologies like artificial intelligence to improve the value chain of sewage treatment. In the case of our own technology, we have used this strategy to complete the basic system design in one to two days, which otherwise would take two to three weeks for proposal and several months for detailed design.
The next step is to expand the 3D automatic design program into construction management and digital twin-based operations management. From there, deep learning technology will be used to expand programs that automatically design, construct, and operate not only BKT/Tomorrow Water’s own technologies but also other technologies.
One challenge with AI is that most professionals in this field are already working in lucrative industries such as pharmaceuticals, unmanned cars, and agriculture. It was so difficult to find AI experts for our project that I even persuaded my second child to change his major from economics to computer science when he returned to Chicago University after his recent discharge from the army! We focused on attracting AI specialists who are interested in a project that is pushing the boundaries of the technology to achieve important global goals. In the second half of this year, we are also working hard to secure funding to further develop water AI, stimulating business development in the U.S, and attracting grants to help implement TWP in the developing world.
Q5. I heard that the TWP Advisory Board was formed by prominent people in the water treatment field. What is the role of this Advisory Board?
The TWP Advisory Board is a group of mentors who share opinions, knowledge, networks, and experience voluntarily with those who agree with our goals for TWP.
First, Dr. Shin-Jo Kang, who serves as chairman, is well highly successful and renowned in his field after serving for 40 years in organizations with an environmental focus such as the U.S. EPA and leading consulting companies.
Another is Bluetech Research’s Dr. Paul O’Callaghan, who collaborated with Matt Damon on Netflix’s Brave Blue World. Other advisory board members including Professor Jeanette Brown at Manhattan College, Professor Joan Rose at Michigan State Univ who received Stockholm Water Prize, and Dr. Sandeep Sathyamoorthy of Black & Veatch are all renowned in both academia and industry.
The Advisory Board is focused on three areas:
1) validating the TWP process before it is distributed to developing countries,
2) securing funding through non-profit organizations, and
3) determining in which countries TWP demonstration pilot plants should be built.
Because UNSDGs all run for a total of 15 years (from 2016 to 2030), our TWP was set up with three stages, each spanning five years. In the first five years, we have completed the development and verification of necessary technologies and are currently preparing for the second phase of the pilot project. The last five years, the third phase, is the expansion phase, when we plan to separate the current advisory group into an independent non-profit organization and promote the practical success of the UNSDGs by showcasing the TWP.
Q6. Lastly, why do you run an environmental business?
I run environmental businesses because it has a significant impact on the public good, and I have always believed that sustainable business success requires social responsibility beyond profit-making.
This kind of leadership is a necessary virtue not only for altruistic aspects of an environmental business but also for long-term business success in the modern world, where information travels quickly and environmental impact is increasingly important to the average citizen.
In the future, industry leaders will be determined not by their size, but through the social impact they create. This can be seen from trends whereby essential sanitation functions, such as sewage treatment, are becoming more important due to factors like COVID, climate change, and emphasis of environmental, social and governance (ESG) based management regardless of the inherent profitability of these functions relative to others in industry.
We are in a period of great, unprecedented transformation. The essential reason why BKT/Tomorrow Water exists is to restore the damaged global environment to a clear and clean world. In working toward this goal, my team and I feel rewarded by creating valuable, wholly innovative solutions and using them to safeguard our planet.