Press Releases

Kurita Water Industries Ltd. (Head Office: Nakano-ku, Tokyo; President: Hirohiko Ejiri; hereinafter "Kurita") has signed the memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Waterplan (Head Office: California, the United States) that develops and provides a platform to assess and manage corporate risks related to water resources (hereinafter "water risks,") on March 25, 2024 (PTD,) to forge the strategic alliance as the first Japanese company. Aiming to contribute more to solving customers' water and environmental issues, including water risks, Kurita and Waterplan will collaborate to expand their customer base and explore new customers.

Due to heavy rains and drought related with climate change in recent years, water risks, such as inundation by floods and water withdrawal restrictions due to drought, are becoming more serious. These risks can be the causes of business interruption or suspension that the importance of business continuity management (BCM,) including the response to water risks, is increasing for companies. In addition, companies are required companies to disclose information regarding water risks, such as assumptions and evaluations through closer collaboration between business sites such as factories and the sustainability department at headquarters.

Waterplan is an American startup company founded in 2021 that develops a cloud-based platform to measure, respond, and report water risks utilizing digital technologies for manufacturing sites, and has already provided the platform to about 50 customers, mainly major companies. The Waterplan's platform adopts its unique model, utilizing satellite images, weather data, and geographic data of river basins, enabling customers to execute high-accuracy evaluations online without on-site investigations.

The Kurita Group sets "Solving Issues Related to Water Resources" as one of the important issues in our materiality for realizing its corporate vision and has been making efforts to create and offer solutions to contribute to conserving water resources, including water saving. We have also been considering creating practical solutions for evaluating water risks and executing based on the results. Part of them, Kurita focused on Waterplan's platform, which has provided the functions for effective and accurate evaluation of water risks since its foundation, to discuss the possibility of collaborating with them. As a result, this agreement was reached due to aligning the direction between Waterplan, which eyes entering the Japanese market, and Kurita, which wants to expand the range of solutions to generate synergies with analysis and prediction of water risks on existing solutions to help preserve water resources such as water saving and wastewater recycling.

Based on the MOU, Kurita will help expand Waterplan's platform mainly to Japanese companies' business sites in Japan and abroad. Regarding the water risks recognized through their platform, we will offer our solutions to help save water by wastewater recycling, etc. and provide monitoring services of its effects. Kurita and Waterplan help with one-stop execution, from considering how to respond to water risks to information disclosure, aiming to contribute further to increasing customers' value.

The Kurita Group will continue to contribute to realizing a sustainable society by creating and providing solutions that will help to reduce running costs and save workloads from customers value-oriented, save water, reduce GHG emissions, and recycle resources from social value-oriented.