For decades, water, energy and waste have been managed as separate areas within industry. Each resource has had its own processes, technologies, suppliers and objectives. However, growing demands for efficiency, competitiveness and sustainability are making the boundaries between them increasingly blurred.
For industry, the challenge is no longer simply to consume less water or energy, or to manage the waste it generates appropriately. The next step is to extract greater value from the resources already circulating within industrial processes, reducing external dependencies and identifying new opportunities for recovery, recirculation and valorisation.
This vision brings together areas that are becoming increasingly interconnected: water, energy and waste.
From water treatment to more circular management
Industry has spent decades improving the management and treatment of its effluents. What began primarily as a matter of environmental compliance has evolved towards far more efficient models in which water can be treated, recovered and recirculated within production processes.
In Spain, this progress has been further reinforced by Royal Decree 1085/2024, which approves the Water Reuse Regulation and consolidates the role of water reuse within integrated water resources management and the circular economy.
At Almar Water Solutions, we have been working according to this principle for years: optimising the industrial water cycle to reduce consumption and dependency, recover water and manage each stream according to its quality, intended use and the value it can bring to the process.
This means moving away from a linear model — abstract, use, treat and discharge — towards one that makes better use of the water already available within the industrial system.
Not every water stream requires the same quality or needs to follow the same pathway. Understanding how water is used, where different streams are generated, their characteristics and how they can be used again makes it possible to design more efficient systems, reducing both freshwater abstraction and discharge volumes.
Water circularity begins precisely here: by viewing water not simply as a resource that enters an industrial facility and must be managed when it leaves, but as a resource that can remain within the production cycle for longer.
Applying the same logic to waste
A similar transformation is beginning to take place in the management of solid waste.
Industry has long recognised the need to treat liquid effluents appropriately. Increasingly, however, companies are beginning to ask the same question about other streams generated by their operations: is this simply a waste stream that needs to be managed, or does it still contain value that can be recovered?
This shift in perspective is creating new opportunities for the valorisation of certain waste streams and industrial by-products.
The experience accumulated in water management also provides a useful framework for approaching this challenge. The first step is to understand and characterise each stream; the second is to determine the treatment it requires; and the third is to assess the potential to recover resources or generate new value from it.
For certain solid waste streams, that value can be energy.
From waste to energy resource
Reducing dependence on conventional fuels is one of industry’s major challenges, particularly in processes where direct electrification is technically complex or economically difficult.
Against this backdrop, Almar assesses alternatives that can support the transition towards more efficient and diversified energy models, exploring solutions tailored to the specific characteristics and requirements of each industrial activity.
These include the use of biomass and certain refuse-derived fuels to produce syngas through gasification processes. Syngas can serve as an energy carrier for industrial applications, enabling materials that would otherwise require alternative waste management routes to be put to productive use.
However, converting waste into energy does not automatically make a process circular. Every solution must be based on a rigorous assessment of the characteristics of the waste stream, the energy requirements of the process, the available alternatives and their technical, environmental and economic viability.
Technology is one part of the answer. The key is to identify where genuine opportunities exist and determine the most appropriate combination of technologies to close resource loops and create value.
Water, energy and waste: increasingly interconnected systems
This is precisely where water and energy strategies begin to converge.
In both cases, the starting point is similar: gaining a better understanding of the resources available within an industrial process in order to use them as efficiently as possible.
For water, this may mean recovering and recirculating a stream rather than drawing again on an external source. For energy, it may involve using a waste stream or by-product to generate an energy resource that can partially replace conventional fuel consumption.
The underlying principle is the same: efficiency, valorisation, reduced external dependency and circularity.
This integrated approach is particularly relevant for resource-intensive industries, where water, energy and waste form part of the same production system. A decision in one area can have direct implications for the others. Looking at them in isolation can therefore mean overlooking optimisation opportunities that only become apparent when the process is considered as a whole.
An integrated vision from Almar Water Solutions
This convergence between water, energy and waste is also part of the evolution of Almar Water Solutions. The company has specialised capabilities in industrial water, waste management and valorisation, and renewable and alternative energy, including the development of solutions related to green hydrogen.
Across these areas, Almar develops and participates in projects designed to address some of industry’s key challenges in an integrated way: securing and optimising water use, reducing dependence on external resources, valorising residual streams and advancing towards energy alternatives with a lower carbon footprint.
Almar has dedicated divisions specialising in industrial water, renewable energy and waste valorisation, bringing together complementary capabilities that enable these resources to be approached not as isolated areas, but as interconnected elements of the same industrial system. This perspective helps identify opportunities for efficiency, recovery and valorisation through a long-term approach that considers both technical and economic factors.
Extracting more value from the resources we already have
The transition towards more efficient industry will not depend solely on introducing new sources of resources or new technologies. It will also depend on our ability to make better use of what is already available to us.
Used water can become recirculated water. A residual stream may contain recoverable resources. Certain waste streams can be transformed into a source of energy. And processes that have traditionally been managed independently can begin to be designed as parts of an interconnected system.
This is the vision Almar Water Solutions is extending from its experience across the entire water cycle into new areas of industrial efficiency and resource valorisation: combining technical expertise, analytical capabilities and a long-term perspective to identify where consumption can be reduced, resources recovered and new efficiencies created.
Because moving towards a more circular industry is not simply about consuming less. It is also about extracting more value from the resources already embedded in our processes.