interview FOUR WHYS OF LEADERSHIP and continuous updating of the technology throughout its life-time, which can be decades. We have dedicated this issue of the magazine to reverse osmosis desalination in particular… We started desalination 30 years ago and have developed it like no one else in high-pressure environments, from the Canary Islands to the Chilean desert, northern Africa, and the Near East. Desalination is currently essential and will be even more so in the future to meet the Sustainable Development Goals. It has been treated unfairly: the impact of brine is questioned even though we have had a plant in Australia for two decades and the con-trolled release method has not modified the seabed whatsoev-er, it remains the same. At Energía, we have constantly reduced its consumption and costs through innovations to make it more competitive and affordable. All of this has allowed us to make an enormous leap in scale. For example, Al Khobar II in Saudi Arabia meets the daily needs of almost two million people on its own, and in Saudi Arabia, we have managed to produce enough to serve seven million inhabitants. Speaking of knowledge, you are the Chair of Water in the Technical Leaders group… This initiative recognizes professionals who lead, share, and develop knowledge in the different specialty areas, such as desali-nation, purification, design, commissioning, operation, digitali-zation, civil works, electrical facilities, instrumentation, and con-trol… We share this knowledge to ensure continuous improvement on projects and we have also adopted technological advancements and a future-oriented business vision, in coordination with the innovation department. This community is another differentiat-ing factor our company has that helps guide technological evolu-tion, anticipate solutions, and avoid problems before they arise. Though they are not infrequent in the sector, none of our plants has ever had a breakdown or a serious treatment liability. Not all companies can say the same. 1. The Water Engineering team is made up of 200 professionals specialized in every area of infrastructure and management. “This diversity makes it practically an applied engineering university keeping all its R&D in-house and no outsourcing of any service, which attracts and retains talent. It is a model to follow in the sector,” says Lorena Cagigas. 2. It is also “the basis for an infrastructure model ahead of its time.” Although it is being developed today, it is planned decades ahead, based on the economic, demographic and climate needs of a future of accelerated change. 3. All of its technological muscle is focused equally on quality (tested under the most extreme water conditions in rivers, lakes and seas), scaling pro-duction and efficiency, developing its own Building Information Modeling (BIM) models, digital twins of facilities, artificial intelligence to improve the efficiency of consumption and processes, integration with photovoltaic plants, cybersecurity standards to safeguard the plants’ data, continuous-ly improving versions of water filtering and reclaiming and reverse osmo-sis systems, among others, and specific processes for growing needs like agricultural irrigation and urban uses. 4. According to the director, “We currently foresee a circular management and business model that will become ever more competitive in terms of costs and returns.” It includes infrastructure that is entirely self-sufficient in energy use thanks to the generation of gas, that reutilizes mud to manu-facture high-quality agricultural fertilizers, and that is starting to transform brine (the by-product of desalination) into an extra source of income by recovering strategic metals and materials from it for their use in industry.