Innovation

While their competitors focused on the homeowner market to appeal to the water scare in California, ENPAC found a niche in creating an underground buried rainwater collection, which essentially appeared as a "fabric box" that collects water underground through traditional gutter and pipeline systems. Such a product is very effective in an urban market for private companies who seek ways to operate on a more "net positive" level, but don't have the physical space to house a 10,000-gallon tank to store water. For example, as urban stormwater mitigation programs become more and more popular, buildings in a city center could use the ENPAC rain collection product as a water "offset" to collect rainwater in times of treacherous weather.

Accordingly, although most interest is on the corporate side, ENPAC's systems "can be used by businesses or homeowners to both help with stormwater offset and water conservation practices. The type and size of the system will largely depend on the user." Specifically, ENPAC provides a service estimating the amount of water collection from X amount of square feet of roof space. Depending on the main purpose of the recycled rainwater, whether for irrigation, garden management, toilets, or even a full facility, barrel systems have been quoted from as small as 55 gallons to as large as 100,000 gallons. The scalability of the product provides a lot of opportunity for large projects, depending on the purpose.

With ENPAC's overarching mission to contain and save liquids for environmental health and safety, they were confident that if they could secure and protect chemicals, they could efficiently do the same for water, for which they recognized a strong demand for such a product in an increasingly water-conscious global community.

Inspiration

Having been a key player in global industry for plastics manufacturing for spill containment and prevention, leaders at ENPAC sought opportunities for unique ways to branch off and expand their product development. In this way, seeing our global society shift from focusing on economic prosperity to environmental sustainability, and particularly demand for access to clean water, executives viewed this as an apt opportunity to explore the potential in rainwater collection and recycling. Several years ago, research had become more and more definitive on how, compared to other sources of energy, "getting more fresh water is really easy." ENPAC International Sales Manager, Alec Janda, states, "While it happens naturally in the status quo, catching water might be the easiest way to easily tackle clean water scarcity globally."

From there, ENPAC discovered a very specific market in rainwater harvesting. Furthermore, the increasing demand for a "water pipeline" connecting California to the Great Lakes, per se, raises the question regarding the potential commoditization of rainwater in the future, which has lots of financial potential. At the end of the day, if partnered with a company that purifies water, ENPAC had a very lucrative business opportunity on its hands.

Janda described a sort of stigma that accompanied using political or social issues to get a profit. However, in reality, market opportunities can coexist with societal good. In fact, according to Janda, it is unacceptable for "sustainability to be exclusive to politics. In fact, businesses move sustainability to the next level." Fortunately, our free market in a "sustainability-conscious" world encourages businesses to innovate at a level that promotes the greatest societal good.

Overall impact

Overall, the rainwater collection, harvest, and recycling has a unique impact both financially on ENPAC and socially on our global community. First, from a business perspective, it is important to acknowledge the untapped market of rainwater harvesting with such new demand. In this way, ENPAC has the potential to run the industry in the short term as a theoretical monopoly with its "fabric box" underground product. But secondly, and more importantly, the increased demand for rainwater accompanies a greater issue that our world is looking for ways to save energy, one of which is reducing water waste. This rainwater collection program gives ENPAC a way to aid in the global initiative to improve water usage, in accordance with the UN Global Goal 6.

Business benefit

ENPAC has seen substantial growth in company sales due to the development of their rainwater harvesting and collection project. With the newly discovered niche market branching off of the spill prevention product collection, ENPAC had an already stable client base and distribution network within the research and chemical industry, that also needed substantial infrastructure developments to abide by growing EPA restrictions on water harvesting. Accordingly, ENPAC has recorded a short-term sales growth of 100% within the rainwater division over the past year. Corporations, like Mitchell's Ice Cream, have collaborated with ENPAC to meet their stormwater mitigation requirements, where they must provide subterranean water harvesting because building infrastructure fails to support the large water intake during a storm. Furthermore, ENPAC leadership is also hopeful that, as our society continues to value our environmental sustainability at increasing levels in the near future, such consumer awareness will yield increased sales in pro-environment products.

Social and environmental benefit

The huge business upside in the rain harvesting product by ENPAC actually stems from the societal benefit that it provides to our communities that are striving to be as water efficient as possible. Although, here in Cleveland, Ohio, we are spoiled with our excess fresh water from our surrounding Great Lakes, other communities around the world, including in California, are less fortunate. The environmental consciousness has spurred innovation across industries to find new ways to be energy and water efficient. ENPAC's rain harvesting and recycling is not only water efficient within its own manufacturing, but also supports water efficiency for other companies' operations. Such a trickle-down effect spreads the value of water efficiency across different businesses and increases awareness worldwide. Academic literature by ARCSA (American Rainwater Catchment Systems Association) has been published documenting the unique environmental benefits associated with harvesting and reusing water in our society. Unfortunately, for ENPAC, it has been difficult to see any real quantitative positive results manifest in the short term. However, it is hard to deny the enormous environmental benefits when individuals cut their homes off of water with a 20,000-gallon cistern, or corporations power their operations with rainwater catchment systems. Nevertheless, ENPAC strives to prolong the lifespan of our Earth by reducing net water usage and, in the long term, hopefully provide clean freshwater to people that no longer have easy access.

Due to its impact to reducing water usage and increasing overall water efficiency, ENPAC's rainwater catching innovation strives to help meet the UN Global Goal 6 to ensure access of water and sanitation to all. According to the UN, due to increasing water scarcity and decreasing water quality, projections estimate at least 25% of the global population to live in countries with shortages of fresh water. While ENPAC doesn't necessarily achieve the sanitation aspects of Goal 6, its efforts to reduce net water usage clearly align with the UN's objectives. Specifically, among their Goal 6 targets, the United Nations seeks to both "substantially increase water-use efficiency...and ensure supply of freshwater to address water scarcity." Furthermore, ENPAC's rainwater collection has potential to achieve even more good than anticipated, where expansion across borders can meet the UN's target of expanding support for programs like water harvesting, water efficiency, and recycling technologies to developing countries. Enhancing net water supply through their innovation allows ENPAC to serve as a market leader in the journey towards meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Interview

Alec Janda, International Sales Manager at ENPAC LLC