Pol Adarve is Director of the Strategic Relations Department, Abeinsa Business Development, Abengoa.

"Abengoa vision is to be a world reference in the development of innovative technology solutions for sustainability, and we are always looking for new ways that enable us to add value to our projects. The establishment of partnerships is nowadays a requirement for developing complex projects. If all the players of the partnership have the same efficiency and sustainability objectives, the results will be in line".

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Barbara Antón is project coordinator of the water team at the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI).

"ICLEI has always been promoting the collaboration of stakeholders for promoting solutions that are suitable to foster sustainable development - this is the same in this case. Partnerships allow the pooling of knowledge, resources, capacities etc. and thus increase the potential to achieve the set goals".

ICLEI convenes panel “Partnerships between local authorities and NGOs” under session “Local Partnerships on Water and Energy”.

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Michel Jarraud is Chair of UN-Water

"UN-Water has dedicated the World Water Day 2014 campaign to the theme of ‘Water and Energy’ and the upcoming World Water Development Report, to be released on World Water Day in March 2014, also addresses the same theme and seeks to inform decision-makers, stakeholders and practitioners about the water and energy inter-linkages, potential synergies and trade-offs".

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Shaoyi Li is Head of the Integrated Resource Management Unit, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

"Sustainable development has three (3) pillars: economic, social and environment and UNEP embraces the integration of these pillars. UNEP seeks to foremost mainstream the environment issues into sustainable development. Water and energy issues are relevant to all the three pillars. If you waste water and energy, it impedes economic activities, causes pollution and deterioration of ecosystems, and emits more greenhouse gases (GHG)".

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Annukka Lipponen is Environmental Affairs Officer at the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE).

"It is clear that many decisions outside the sphere of water resources management, including energy policies, impact on the status of waters. In order to better 1) protect transboundary waters by preventing, controlling and reducing transboundary impacts, and 2) to promote reasonable and equitable utilization of shared waters (both are among the obligations of the UNECE Water Convention), an improved understanding of the inter-dependencies between water and energy, as well as inter-sectoral impacts is necessary. Striving towards higher efficiency and sustainability in the use of one resource commonly brings co-benefits also for the other resource".

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Diego Rodríguez is Senior Economist, Department of Transport, Water and Information Communication Technology (TWIWA), The World Bank.

"Partnership for improving water and energy efficiency and sustainability is of major importance for the World Bank. The World Bank has embarked on a global initiative: Thirsty Energy, which quantifies tradeoffs and identifies synergies between water and energy resource management and aims to help governments prepare for an uncertain future, and break disciplinary silos that prevent cross-sectoral planning. It focuses on increasing awareness of the urgent issues among relevant stakeholders in both water and energy sectors. It works with stakeholders to build country capacity to identify water constrains and plan energy and water resources comprehensively".

The World Bank convenes session “The Business Case for Integrated Energy-Water Planning and Investments”.

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Robert Schröder is Policy Officer at the European Commission, DG Environment, Unit C.1 Protection of Water Resources.

"The EU has developed the European Water Policy to ensure the good quality of water supply and quantitative management of water. In line with this policy, there is a strong relationship between water and energy; water is used in producing energy and the production of it has an effect on the quality and quantity of water. It is therefore important for us to look at both the water and energy policies and ensure the objectives are met. In order to achieve these targets, we believe partnerships or collaboration with partners in both the water and energy sectors will help find innovation approach solutions".

The EU participates in session “Industry partnering with government to ensure water and energy efficiency and sustainability”.

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Christian Susan is Industrial Development Officer at UNIDO.

"In line with the Carlsberg Group CSR policy Baltika Breweries as a member of the Carlsberg Group are committed to improving water efficiency. While the Carlsberg Group as one of the globally leading beverage industry has the know-how to improve the water efficiency in the breweries the Carlsberg Group partnered up with UNIDO to provide technical advice to agro-industrial suppliers to equally enhance water efficiency along the supply chain".

UNIDO convenes panel UNIDO-Industry Partnerships under session “Industry partnering with government to ensure water and energy efficiency and sustainability”.

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Víctor Viñuales is Executive Director of Fundación Ecología y Desarrollo.

"ECODES has worked in water efficiency, energy efficiency and access to water and sanitation for more than 15 years".
ECODES participates in session Local Partnerships on Water and Energy.

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Shimizu Yasutoshi is Senior Research Manager at ESG Promotion Department of TOTO Ltd. Japan and Secretary-General of Asian Saving Water Council.

"TOTO is a company which manufactures and sells water-related equipment such as toilet bowls and showers. Supply of these products has benefited many countries. TOTO aims to contribute to a global environment improvement through their products. In TOTO, an environmental improvement contribution scenario is achieved by paying attention to the co-benefit of water saving, water resources preservation, energy saving and CO2 reduction. In this regard, water-energy nexus is an issue which forms the core of the environmental contribution activities of TOTO".

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