Cobalt Water Global, Inc. is a ClimateTech startup that was incorporated in 2020 with the mission to help decarbonize the water sector (water utilities, industries with water systems). It’s N2O solution, the N2ORisk DSS, is the most advanced in the world to help water utilities and industries account for, reduce and monitor their wastewater N2O process emission. Founder and CEO Jose Porro is the top N2O expert in practice and has over 15 years’ experience in general water utility carbon accounting. He originally founded the company as a consultancy in 2014 to apply his water, N2O, carbon accounting expert knowledge and new AI skills (from PhD studies) to offer water utility carbon accounting and mitigation services. As opportunities increased to scale positive climate impact, it became clear that the consultancy had to transition to a tech company and productize the knowledge and scale it as a subscription model.
At Cobalt Water Global, developing innovative, holistic, and sustainable water solutions is in our DNA. The desire to use our water expert knowledge to make a more sustainable water sector gave way to the Total Water approach.
As a concept, Total Water was coined by Jose Porro (Founder) and was inspired from Total Football (soccer), referring to the versatility of a football player for filling different roles in a match, as needed. Similarly, in Total Water, the same water can serve multiple roles to close water loops and make a city more sustainable. However, Total Water also implies a holistic approach; therefore, also has meaning on several levels:
Cobalt Water Global brings a diverse skill set with expertise in both drinking water and wastewater systems, for both large and small cities, such that the most critical urban water system problems can be solved. Furthermore, we are water experts who are experts in AI, providing unique value in developing water solutions and connecting the physical with the digital.
Whether it is treatment, transport, use, and reuse, Cobalt Water Global looks at the whole urban water cycle when developing solutions to predict and solve for how changes in one part of a system, such as water treatment or transport, may impact other parts of the system. This approach results in an overall best solution in terms of cost, water quality, service levels, efficiency, and positive environmental and climate impact.
Recognizing the pressures of today’s economic environment, we not only look at the job at hand, but also consider all benefits that can be gained, from cost to sustainability options, and design a holistic approach that fully maximizes investments.
Jose Porro is founder and CEO of Cobalt Water Global, an innovative ClimateTech company focused on
decarbonization of the water industry. Prior to founding the tech company in 2020 (company started as consultancy from 2014-2020), he had worked for over 20 years in the water industry as a consulting environmental engineer designing water (drinking water and wastewater) treatment facilities, modeling drinking water distribution system hydraulics, water quality, and energy consumption, and wastewater treatment process modeling across the US and internationally. Jose started water utility GHG accounting in 2008 working on projects with NYCDEP and NYSERDA, but eventually working as an international expert on GHG assessment, being recruited by the International Water Association (IWA) and the German Government to serve as the technical expert for the WaCCliM Project (2014-2019) helping to inventory and reduce GHG emissions from water utilities around the world. As part of the WaCCliM Project he also served as the technical lead for the development of the Energy and Carbon Assessment and Monitoring (ECAM) tool – the first web-based GHG assessment tool for the water industry. In 2010 Jose founded the IWA Task Group on GHG Modelling and has become the leading expert on wastewater N2O process emissions in practice. He has been recruited to participate in N2O applied research projects at the national level in the US, The Netherlands (for STOWA) and the UK (for UKWIR), and as one of the leading N2O experts in the world, was invited to give a keynote for the Melbourne Water Emission Impossible Workshop in Australia to talk about N2O. The N2ORisk DSS (AI/ML platform for WRRF N2O emissions accounting, reduction, and monitoring) is a product of his PhD research integrating AI and mathematical modelling for minimizing N2O emissions from WRRFs Jose was also co-editor and co-author of the recent IWA Publishing open access book, “Quantification and modeling of fugitive GHG emissions from urban water systems.” Jose is a licensed Professional Engineer in the State of New York, holds BS (Wilkes University) and ME (Manhattan College) degrees in Environmental Engineering, and is finishing a PhD in Bioscience Engineering from Ghent University.
Girum specializes in water utility GHG accounting, AI/ML for reducing wastewater N2O process emissions with the N2ORisk DSS, and GHG accounting for water treatment technology selection using the Novedar_EDSS. He also works on advancing Cobalt Water Global’s ClimateTech products for helping to decarbonize the water industry through R&D. Girum is also a Lecturer at Wachamo University, a founding member of “Green Hossana” a volunteer organization that strives to make the city green and clean, and is excited about helping to achieve sustainable, low-carbon, and climate resilient water and sanitation systems that encompasses a circular economy. Girum holds Masters degrees in Environmental Engineering (Addis Ababa University) and in Urban Water and Sanitation/Sanitary Engineering (UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education).
Sai is a highly skilled water systems analyst and a research scientist who is passionate about providing sustainable solutions to water issues and challenges. She is the recipient of Commonwealth Split-Site award at Durham University, UK and has extensive experience working in the areas of urban water supply management, water utility benchmarking, water regulation and policy issues. After her PhD in Civil Engineering from National Institute of Technology, Bhopal, India in collaboration with Durham University, UK, she worked with UNDP (UN agency for international development) providing technical support to the State Government for integrating and localizing Sustainable Development Goals.As a Water and Climate Engineer at Cobalt Water Global , Sai leads critical market/policy research and climatetech R&D to continue advancing our product solutions for decarbonizing the water industry, as well as providing AI and machine learning product implementation support for assessing and mitigating wastewater N2O process emissions. Sai is committed to increasing sustainability in the water sector through data-driven, policy relevant and impact focused work.
Veerle is our Office Manager in Belgium. Her current focus at Cobalt Water is on optimizing administration and managing the administration in our European headquarters. She is a hands-on colleague with yes mentality, and in her private life has a passion for gymnastics and her kids.
Dagnachew is a software engineer managing the IT and product maintenance and development needs for Cobalt Water Global’s ClimateTech software solutions. He holds a BS in electrical engineering and computer science and MSc in computer engineering.
Julia is a water and climate engineer applying her environmental engineering knowledge with AI//ML to assess and model nitrous oxide emission. She is in charge of data management, model training , deployment, and providing implementation support for Cobalt’s N2ORisk DSS platform. She acquired a B.S. in environmental engineering from Drexel University in June of 2023 and has a passion for decarbonization and climate action.