Kamakshi Sharma, Director of Marking & Strategy at Aquatech, on the forces reshaping the water sector, the technologies driving change, and why industrial reuse might be the most important conversation we're not having loudly enough.

For a long time, water sat quietly in the background of industrial and urban planning — an assumed resource, a logistics footnote. That era is ending. In this episode of Meaningful Conversations, Kamakshi — a specialist in industrial water and membrane technology — drew the Growth card, and used it as a starting point for a wide-ranging conversation about what genuine growth looks like for the water sector right now, and where the most exciting opportunities lie ahead.

"Water is becoming sexy. It's coming to the forefront of conversations across industry, municipalities, technology — and that shift is real and accelerating."

A sector at a precipice

Kamakshi's read on the current moment is that the water industry is standing at a genuine inflection point. Climate change has made the stakes impossible to ignore - water scarcity, extreme weather, and tightening regulations mean that what was once a background consideration is now a boardroom conversation.

Municipalities are planning for water earlier than ever, knowing that the resource constraints shaping their region today will only intensify. And in the industrial world, companies that once treated water as a simple input are increasingly understanding that their relationship with water - what they take, what they use, and critically, what they put back - is both a risk and an opportunity.

There is also a cultural shift underway. When Kamakshi entered the sector a decade ago, conference floors looked very different. Today, she sees significantly more women in the room - a visible marker of a profession broadening its talent base and, with it, its perspectives.

What's driving momentum in industrial water

The industrial side of the sector is where Kamakshi sees some of the most energising developments. Companies are increasingly willing to co-develop solutions - piloting new membrane technologies, working hand-in-hand with technology providers to validate approaches against their specific feedwater challenges. That kind of collaborative relationship between customer and innovator accelerates everything.

• Stricter regulation: A growing push for ZLD and MLD solutions is raising the bar for industrial discharge
• Membrane innovation: New membrane technologies are making treatment more economical and energy efficient
• Resource recovery: Extracting valuable salts and minerals from wastewater is becoming a genuine market opportunity
• Grid constraints: Limited access to freshwater is forcing industries to treat water as a managed resource, not a given

The regulatory environment is pushing in the same direction. Zero liquid discharge (ZLD) standards and a wider move towards minimal liquid discharge (MLD) are creating demand for more sophisticated solutions and technology is keeping pace. In the membrane space in particular, what can be achieved today at viable cost and energy use would have been difficult to imagine even a few years ago.

"It's not just about treating the water anymore. It's about what you can extract from it — and those conversations are becoming central to where the industry is heading."

The feedwater itself is also becoming more complex. As industrial processes evolve, the contaminants and concentrations companies need to manage are increasingly challenging - which demands more sophisticated treatment approaches and opens more space for technology partners who can genuinely solve novel problems.

On water scarcity — and what real impact looks like

The conversation turned to one of the bigger questions hanging over the industry: is it possible to imagine a world where the quality and availability of water actually improves over time, even as climate pressures mount?

Kamakshi's response was measured and honest. The most important lens, she argues, is one of impact. Agriculture and industrial manufacturing are by far the largest consumers of water on the planet and it is in those sectors, not in household behaviour change, where the largest levers sit. That doesn't mean individual actions don't matter. But it does mean that the water industry should be honest about where its attention and innovation will do the most good.

Closed loop systems, where industrial and agricultural water is treated, recovered and reused within the same process, represent one of the most meaningful opportunities available. Reuse, done well and at scale, is not just about conservation. It is about fundamentally rethinking the relationship between human industrial activity and the water cycle itself.

"We need closed loop systems that leave water in a better place than we found it. That's where the industry can make its biggest mark - not in telling people to take shorter showers."

Growth that means something

What comes through in Kamakshi's perspective is a vision of growth that is fundamentally purposeful. The excitement about water becoming more visible, more central, more technologically dynamic - it is not growth for its own sake. It is growth in the capacity of the sector to do what it has always existed to do: protect and deliver one of the world's most essential resources.

As more industries come to water earlier, as regulations tighten and technologies mature, the professionals and organisations in this sector have a genuine opportunity to lead - not just in solving today's problems, but in setting the terms for how industry relates to water for decades to come.

The water sector is no longer an ancillary conversation. It is at the centre of how the world manages its most critical resource through one of its most challenging periods. Kamakshi's perspective is a reminder that the growth happening in this industry carries real weight and that the people shaping it have both the tools and the responsibility to make it count.