“Prepare for the worst” and don’t be surprised
In 2014 we identified water as a key future resource and created our company with the primary focus on rainwater harvesting and water treatment. It was well ahead of its time!
The biggest challenge then was to convince a business or households to install a system that would recover rainwater for use to save money, provide purified water as well as to have water available when there was an interruption to the municipal water supply. For many businesses the return on investment made no sense, water was cheap and many managers or house owners had no future insight into the potential of water shortages and interruptions.
We were able to convince some “savvy” owners and business. Fast forward to 2022, the price of water has virtually doubled in the last 5 years, municipal water infrastructure is collapsing. In April of 2022 the floods in Durban caused the municipal water infrastructure to completely collapse. Many households and business were without water for more that 2-3 weeks, while temporary repairs were made. Those businesses, managers and households who “savvily” had the insight to install some kind of water recovery and backup systems were able to function to some extent while others were desperately scrambling around for water tankers, buying water at 1-2 Rands per litre.
For small to medium businesses to survive in South Africa they have to prepare for the worst-case scenarios to operate their business in. As much as we a hope it will get better, we firmly believe it won’t and being prepared for the worst will help your business survive.
