Global Water Intelligence

As a result of this original DNA, SOR made it its thing to own an impressive number of contracts without serving an equally impressive number of people.

Back in 2004, Global Water Intelligence reported that Soar had more French water contracts than Veolia and Suez combined, yet the two together served five times more customers, meaning the average Soar contract was far smaller than the two other giants.

But that network of contracts, deeply entrenched in their local communities, turned out to be an asset.

And this, beyond the water industry.

Because yes, he is an executive with a brilliant corporate career, but he is also an elected representative in his town of Vichy, where he is responsible for... relations with businesses.

What else? And quite regularly, he has publicly connected that experience to his way of running SOAR.

In a 2020 Global Water Intelligence interview, he argued for bringing service teams geographically closer to customers, explaining that his experience as a local elected official had taught him the limitations of a supplier that feels too distant.

And Patrick's profile and political experience is not unique among SOAR's top executives.

Changing gears slightly.

So we had Chris Gasson from Global Water Intelligence on here, and he's not a fan of atmospheric water generation.

He thinks it doesn't make sense.

Now, we think he's wrong.

And this is a great opportunity for cross-sectoral collaboration based on mutual trust.

In its wider review of data center projects, Global Water Intelligence describes developers handling water infrastructure over to utilities under agreements that pay for the service.

That gives us a way to connect the AI player's ongoing need for water to the utility's ongoing cost of providing it, including the people and the maintenance that keep it running.

The difficult part is deciding who carries the risk if the customer needs less water than expected.