Gift From Above

Source Global is tapping into a renewable source— the sky—to supply drinking water to residential communities and commercial properties in Asia

- Bill Bredesen

Globally, more than 2 billion people lack access to safe drinking water at home. Even in major cities throughout Asia, tap water is often not safe to consume—and so people turn to bottled water instead. Half a trillion single-use plastic bottles are sold each year around the world.

SOURCE Global, a US-based company, is working to address these challenges with a unique technology that produces clean drinking water from sunlight and air.

This renewable, decentralised form of high-quality drinking water leapfrogs infrastructure, allowing people to make clean water wherever they are, without the need to haul it long distances through pipes or in plastic bottles.

The company’s customers range from individual households to corporate offices and factories, and then more rural, isolated, government-sponsored projects where the primary hurdle is lack of access to a centralised source.

“Throughout our core markets in Asia, people typically have water they can use for toilets, showers and irrigation, but then they buy higher-quality packaged drinking water,” says Robert Bartrop, SOURCE’s chief revenue officer who leads the company’s global business development activities.

“Our residential systems are replacing that drinking water component in a dramatically more cost-effective, sustainable and resilient way.”

Bartrop previously spent a decade working for First Solar, a US-based photovoltaics (PV) developer, and recalls having similar discussions then with companies that wanted to move away from coal and gas to renewable sources to generate power in a more sustainable and accessible way.