ADB partners with Isle Utilities for special edition Podcast

[00:00:00] Piers Clark: Welcome to this special series of conversations supported by Isle Utilities in collaboration with the Asian Development Bank. In this series, we explore the innovations, partnerships, and policies driving sustainable water solutions across Asia and the wider Pacific.
[00:00:15] Piers Clark: My name is Piers Clark and my guest today is Carla Correia, the Chief Executive at Águas de Portugal in Portugal.
[00:00:23] Piers Clark: Carla, brilliant to have you with us. Thank you for taking the time.
[00:00:26] Carla Correia: Thank you Piers.
[00:00:27] Piers Clark: Now we always start with a little bit of background of our guests. What did you do before you took on the role of Chief Executive at AdP?
[00:00:38] Carla Correia: I have a degree in legal and economic science, and my career started as a lawyer, but over the time I moved into the water and environmental sector more than 26 years ago. And since then, I've dedicated my professional life to this area of the water sector.
[00:00:56] Carla Correia: Within the Águas de Portugal group, I began in a legal technical role and later had the privilege to hold several leadership positions. I began as Secretary of the Board of Director and have been appointed as Executive Board Member of SANEST.
[00:01:14] Carla Correia: Later I became Vice President and Board Member of the holding company of the group. I had the responsibility of several areas, including legal, compliance, risk management, human resource, sustainability, communication, and corporate strategy.
[00:01:30] Carla Correia: I also gained valuable experience outside the group. I served as Chief of Staff of the Secretary of State of Public Works and Communication, and later as Secretary of State for Environmental.
[00:01:42] Carla Correia: I think that altogether, this combination of legal expertise, corporate governance and leadership, both in public and private sector, prepared me to take this role that I have today as CEO of Águas de Portugal International.
[00:01:58] Piers Clark: Excellent. And how long have you been Chief Executive?
[00:02:01] Carla Correia: I've been here since May 2023.
[00:02:04] Piers Clark: Okay. So, you are through the honeymoon period, but you've not been there very long. Can you give me three words that would describe you as a leader of an organization?
[00:02:13] Carla Correia: I would describe myself determinated because I always set a clear vision. I work very hard to achieve results for me and for the organization. I must be resilient 'cause leading complex transformations requires persistence and also the ability to navigate uncertainty without losing focus.
[00:02:35] Carla Correia: But I also like to think that I'm human because I truly believe that leadership depends on empathy. It depends on building strong teams and creating a culture of trust and respect.
[00:02:47] Piers Clark: That's excellent. We need all leaders to behave like that.
[00:02:50] Piers Clark: Now, let's talk about Águas de Portugal. Can you tell me a bit about the organization? Where is it and how many people do you serve?
[00:02:58] Carla Correia: Águas de Portugal International is Portugal's National Water Utility Group. It has been created in 1993 and is fully owned by the Portuguese State.
[00:03:09] Carla Correia: Our mission is very clear to ensure safe, reliable, and sustainably water and wastewater services across the country. Today we serve about 80.9 million people. That's around 85% of the Portuguese population and the across 270 municipalities. The group includes certain operation companies and two international companies abroad.
[00:03:34] Carla Correia: Our infrastructures covers more than 22,000 kilometers of water supply networks, 117 water treatment plants, and 28 dams. And over 1,000 wastewater treatment facilities.
[00:03:50] Piers Clark: Brilliant. Alright, I asked you to describe yourself in three words, now I'm gonna do the same and ask you to describe the organization in three words.
[00:03:59] Carla Correia: If we focus on management and results, we can describe ourselves as efficient in delivering high quality service across the country. Resilient in ensuring water security and adapting to future challenge. And people focus because at the end, our mission is to make a difference in people's life. But if we focus on purpose and future, I think we can describe ourself as sustainable, inclusive, and future oriented because we are sustainable in managing water responsibly.
[00:04:36] Carla Correia: Inclusive in serving communities from urban center to rural areas and future oriented because we invest in innovation and circular economy solutions.
[00:04:47] Piers Clark: I'm so glad you said that because we are now moving to the meat of our discussion. I want you to talk about both innovation and the things you've been doing on your energy strategy and the circular economy.
[00:04:57] Piers Clark: I've actually heard you speak before about the 360 strategy that you've developed. In particular, how it varies from traditional innovation strategies that maybe other utilities have adopted. Can you tell me a bit about that? What is this 360 strategy for innovation?
[00:05:14] Carla Correia: I think it's important to understand how was Portugal 30 years ago to understand our 360 strategy of innovation.
[00:05:24] Carla Correia: 30 years ago, coverage in Portugal was very low. Less than 15% of the population was served by wastewater treatment, and under 50% have access to safe water, and only about 75% were connected to a public water supply system. Today after three decades of investment, we achieved over 95% coverage, water quality above 99% and 97% compliance with wastewater discharge license.
[00:06:00] Carla Correia: That is where Innovation 360 comes in. It's holistic and it embrace four key pillars: efficiency, security, resilience, and autonomy. We started by identifying our main cost drivers: energy, sludge and people. From there we launched specific programs to focus on these drivers. So we launched ZERO program, a group wide commitment to reach for energy neutrality by 2030.
[00:06:31] Carla Correia: We also developed Águas+ program focusing water reuse and circle economy. This allow us to develop reuse applications for agriculture and cities. We use real time monitoring, predictive maintenance, and new digital tools to improve transparency and service. And finally, we create a proactive innovation fund where all companies in the group donates a certain amount.
[00:06:59] Carla Correia: And employees can submit their own projects to be founded in this fund. This encourage both ideas and fast experimentations enabling our workers to innovate based on the needs they come across in their day works. These needs often leads to creation of new products or methods, which they can submit to the group fund to develop supporters.
[00:07:24] Piers Clark: I love this idea that you've got a group of companies and they all pay a sort of innovation tax into the center that then people can bid for and propose good ideas that then ensure that the innovations addressing the problems that really matter at the coalface of the organization. It's brilliant.
[00:07:40] Piers Clark: Now, one of the first initiatives you've mentioned was you were aiming to be energy neutral by 2030, and I suspect that target was set back in 2020. Now we're getting quite close to 2030. How are you getting on with that target? Are you gonna meet it?
[00:07:58] Carla Correia: I think it's important to understand that AdP group, it's the largest public electricity consumer in Portugal. We use more than 700 gigawatts hour per year, about 1.4% of the country's total consumption.
[00:08:15] Carla Correia: That's why in 2020, we launched our energy neutrality program with the clear goal of becoming fully energy neutral by 2030, this plant is a mix of renewable energy, 60% solar, 25% wind, 7% hydro, 4% biogas.
[00:08:36] Carla Correia: We are on track and we are going to meet our target to achieve energy autonomy by 2030.
[00:08:44] Piers Clark: Are there already examples of how you benefited from this program?
[00:08:49] Carla Correia: Yes. I believe the best example for this is how we handled the international power cut on April 28th of this year. Through our ZERO program, we had the energy security in our operations of our wastewater treatment plant throughout the crisis.
[00:09:06] Piers Clark: So this strategy of being carbon neutral, it also gave you this wonderful platform of energy security such that operators in your plant didn't even know there was a power cut. Brilliant.
[00:09:18] Piers Clark: Now, apart from the energy security, are there more benefits that you saw from this program?
[00:09:24] Carla Correia: Yes, the benefits are huge for us. We have energy independence and avoiding around 805,000 tons of CO2 emissions every year. So it's not only good for the environment, but also essential for the resilience and energy security of the group.
[00:09:44] Piers Clark: Well said. Now, what advice would you give to other utilities who might be looking at what you've done to achieve that and thinking, "Hey, I'd like to go on that journey".
[00:09:53] Piers Clark: What advice would you give them?
[00:09:55] Carla Correia: Based on our experience, my advice would be simple: be bold, but realistic on this kind of matters. Set ambitious targets, but build a roadmap that reflects actual energy profile.
[00:10:09] Carla Correia: Start with efficiency, reducing loss, improving process, digitalize, and then structure investment in phases. It's impossible to do everything at the same time. So establish clear phases. We should begin with smaller projects to build capacity and test solutions, and then scale up to larger investments.
[00:10:32] Carla Correia: And finally, don't wait because all the technologies are available. The return on investment is proven and the benefits for the organization and society are clear. Achieving net neutrality takes persistence and governance, but I think a significant progress can be made in five or 10 years.
[00:10:54] Carla Correia: If a complex group like us that have municipalities working with us, and sometimes it's difficult to take some decisions and to make some investments, but if a complex group like us can aim for energy neutrality in 2030, I believe that many others can do it too.
[00:11:13] Piers Clark: That's brilliant. Carla, unfortunately, we're running out of time. So my final question to you on a personal level, go back 20 years. Think about that young lawyer that you were 20 years ago, what advice would you give her now with all the wisdom and all the experience you've gained?
[00:11:31] Carla Correia: If I could go back 20 years and give an advice to myself, I think I would say spend more time with the people you love, because time is precious and it passes very quickly.
[00:11:43] Carla Correia: I also would say be yourself. Don't let others define your path. Always hold on to the values you were taught: honesty, respect, resilience, and care for others. I think that these values guided me through challenges and they helped me make the right choice. I think I wouldn't change anything I've done.
[00:12:05] Piers Clark: You have been listening to this special series of conversations supported by Isle Utilities in collaboration with the Asian Development Bank, with me, Piers Clark, and my guest today is been Carla Correia, the Chief Executive of Águas de Portugal.
[00:12:20] Piers Clark: I hope you can join us next time. Thank you.