CASE STUDY 6 Aquapolo Ambiental – A PPP in São Paulo São Paulo’s ABC region, home to 3 million people and 24,000 industries, faces acute water scarcity, with only 130 m³ of freshwater available per person annually, just 5% of the United Nations (UN) benchmark. To address this, Sabesp and GS Inima Industrial created Aquapolo Ambiental in 2012, Latin America’s largest industrial reuse facility.Structured as a €90 million public-private partnership (90% debt-financed), it operates under a 42-year take-or-pay contract between Aquapolo and Braskem petrochemical complex. Effluent from Sabesp’s ABC wastewater plant undergoes tertiary treatment, ultra filtration and nano filtration, before being delivered via a 17-km pipeline. With a capacity of 1,000 litres per second, Aquapolo supplies 12 industries, has produced 135 million m³ of recycled water, and serves as an educational hub.Unsustainable patterns of water and energy use highlight the urgent need for systemic transformation in water infrastructure management towards circularity. This shift demands significant financial commitments: by 2040, almost €1 trillion will need to be invested in circular practices integrating water reuse, energy recovery and pollution control. Strategic investment in advanced reuse, sludge-to-resource valorization and rainwater harvesting (RWH) can enable utilities to move beyond traditional service delivery, establishing themselves as resilient hubs that secure water, energy and nutrient resources.2.3 Circularity and resource recovery Reuse as a percentage of freshwater withdrawals in the municipal sector FIGURE 9 0%10%20% Middle East Oceania Europe Africa North America Latin America Asia18% 15% 11% 11% 9% 5% 1% Source: World Bank Group, 2025Despite the well-recognized potential of circular water management practices, including water reuse and RWH, their adoption remains limited. Currently only 12% of municipal freshwater withdrawal is reused worldwide, despite projections suggesting a potential of up to 50% of municipal freshwater withdrawals by 2040.19 Reuse can be implemented through centralized systems, applying advanced tertiary processes to wastewater treatment plants and delivering reclaimed water via dedicated pipelines to industrial clusters or farmers. Alternatively, decentralized systems can be applied to residential or commercial buildings, treating greywater or blackwater for non-potable uses such as toilet flushing and irrigation. Scale wastewater reuse Bridging the €6.5 Trillion Water Infrastructure Gap: A Playbook 20

Bridging the %E2%82%AC6.5 Trillion Water Infrastructure Gap A Playbook 2025