Young generation develops future language for our relation with water

The GRROW lab was launched in May 2024, directed at water professionals and researchers, aged under 35, in the Dutch and Flemish water sector. With their fresh perspective they examine questions like: What does our relation with drinking water and other water look like? What do we need to change, and what do we want to leave unchanged?

Working on the future of water

GRROW stands for Generational and Radical Rethinking of the Watersector, and became an established concept during the first GRROW project of 2021-2023. At that time, 70 young water professionals jointly developed – in dialogue with older generation colleagues – three scenarios for the future drinking water chain: collective chain, water to measure, and disrespect for dischargers.  The participants and their networks thus connected with each other, with others in the water world, and with the future of the water sector – to everybody’s satisfaction.

A sustainable relation with drinking water

In the follow-up GRROW lab project, the participants are looking for a sustainable relation with drinking water and other water. The GRROW lab operates in 18-month cycles on a paradigm in the water chain, an approach that was developed during the preceding GRROW project. The ‘drinking water’ paradigm is being discussed in the GRROW lab, and young water professionals are together studying how our relation with water is expressed in the language we use in talking about it. In this Public Design research, the participants in various workshops identify, reassess, redesign and interpret the underlying assumptions upon which this thinking pattern is built. What is useful? What needs changing?

The GRROW lab methodology developed in the GRROW project

In June 2024, more than 50 participants began an intergenerational dialogue with experts in their own organisations about the different applications and the importance of drinking water and other water, and about the associated responsibilities of the water utility. KWR’s Nicolien van Aalderen on this process: ‘This intergenerational dialogue demonstrated that water represents many values for us, but this is not always reflected in the way we talk about water and how we use it. That’s why the GRROW lab this time is not working on future scenarios, but on a new language for water. These new words provide the starting point for our future relationship with water!’  

Intergenerational dialogue about water

For the intergenerational dialogue, the GRROW lab team also spoke with Delta Commissioner, Co Verdaas, and Quartermaster ‘Toekomst aan Tafel’ (Future at the Table), Mare de Wit (in Dutch), who both recently took up their functions. Verdaas and De Wit argued for the need to provide space for a fundamental revision of the drinking water provision. They stressed the need for a balanced system with a holistic perspective. Here, too, this concerned our water language. Verdaas moreover called for a shift from an alarming tone to a constructive and engaged approach, as a means of attracting a wider public to the effort to address water-related challenges. And the GRROW lab also integrated this message into their discussions about a new perception of water.

Intergenerational dialogue between GRROW’er Bart-Jan van der Werf (Vitens), Delta Commissioner, Co Verdaas, and Quartermaster ‘Toekomst aan Tafel’, Mare de Wit

On a date with water

During the first GRROW lab workshop, on 26 September 2024 at Evides Waterbedrijf, the young professionals went ‘on a date’ with each other, in which they played the role of either a person or of water, as a way of analysing their relationship and exploring what was needed for a sustained, long-term relationship. KWR researcher Katja Barendse on this process: ‘It quickly became clear that this relationship was not always a bed of roses. What unmet needs and desires were buried below the surface? Time for relationship therapy: what do people and water need from each other to bring about a sustainable future? In these therapy phases the underlying values (and thus the design principles) came to the surface, and the GRROW lab is now attempting to incorporate them into a new language for water.’ With new words, the GRROW lab hopes to provide guidance for a paradigm that revolves around responsibility and interconnectedness. Barendse: ‘Some of the participants who represented water got angry, saying, ‘I do so much for you; I deserve a lot more recognition!’ By talking to the participants about their emotional world, we were able together to reflect on our relationship with water, and on how we can fulfil these wishes in the future.’ And this was done not only with young professionals, the members of the Waterwijs Coordination Consultation Committee and water professionals at the Dutch Design Week also went ‘on a date’ and underwent ‘relationship therapy’ with water. All these insights have been translated into design principles, and form the basis for the development of this new language by young professionals.

Members of the Waterwijs-coordinated ‘dating’ chat between people and water

New narrative for water

In the period ahead, the insights from the ‘date’ and ‘relationship therapy’ phase will constitute the basis for a new language for water. The GRROW cycle will be concluded with a widely accessible symposium for all those involved on 12 June 2025. The new language for water will be presented during this gathering, and the participants will experience what it will mean for our relationship with water. The GRROW lab thus wants to contribute, in a structured fashion, to engaging young professionals in discussions on leading paradigms in the drinking water and other water sectors, to ensuring that they can connect with other professionals in the sector, and to having them familiarise themselves with research and strategy development.