2025 WATER Conservation Award Finalists
SPONSORED BY
For a product, service or technology that preserves or restores water quality or achieves significant savings of water resources.
AECI in partnership with Kusini Water
Access to safe, clean water remains a critical challenge in South Africa, with over 11 million people lacking reliable access. Recognising this urgent need, AECI has partnered with Kusini Water, a pioneering social enterprise that develops innovative water purification systems using locally sourced macadamia nut shells and nanotechnology. Together, they deliver clean drinking water to rural, peri-urban, and informal communities across key provinces, including the Eastern Cape, Western Cape, Mpumalanga, Gauteng, and KwaZulu-Natal. Their initiatives include solar-powered purification systems, providing electricity to schools during loadshedding, and upskilling local water stewards. This partnership not only meets immediate needs but also advances long-term sustainable development goals, supporting public health, education, and community empowerment. Through this collaboration, AECI demonstrates responsible corporate citizenship, investing in scalable, community-driven solutions that bring dignity, hope, and safe water to thousands of lives.
Environmental & Rural Solutions
ERS promotes transformative conservation that is inclusive of and benefits marginalized rural communities. Since 2002, it has championed freshwater security by combining traditional knowledge with modern techniques to protect water resources, restore grasslands and rangelands, and foster a local conservation culture and economy based on mutual respect and collaboration. Operating in the southern Drakensberg Mountains—a critical catchment area of the Umzimvubu River supporting two million people—ERS enables local youth and governance structures to provide reliable water supply to vulnerable communities. Its work strengthens catchment health through regenerative rangeland management, alien plant control, and innovative waste alternatives, while boosting livelihoods via biomass and livestock value chains. Guided by Ubuntu, ERS exemplifies a collaborative vision for conservation, community resilience, and sustainable development.
Woolworths & WWF-SA Water Stewardship Project
iThemba Kuluntu is a community-based nonprofit delivering systemic solutions for sustainable development in rural Eastern Cape, South Africa, focusing on education, health, food security, and clean water. Its PureFlow Amanzi Bucket Filter Initiative addresses the water crisis affecting over 10 million South Africans. In the Eastern Cape, more than 359,000 households rely on contaminated water shared with animals. The gravity-fed, chemical-free filters remove 99.9999% of bacteria, delivering 10,000 litres of safe water without electricity or waste. Locally assembled, each unit creates jobs for youth and women, including WASH training and follow-up. To date, 1,200+ filters have reached over 5,000 people, avoided thousands of tonnes of CO₂, and safeguarded health and forests. This African-born model is scalable, offering systemic transformation far beyond water access alone.
www.ithembakuluntu.org / https://ithembakuluntu.org/pure-flow-amanzi