RELX N : Environmental Challenge 2018 shortlist announced

RELX Group Environmental Challenge 2018 shortlists four projects to bring safe water and sanitation to communities around the world.

The RELX Group Environmental Challenge 2018 shortlist has been announced, highlighting four innovative ideas that provide sustainable access to safe water and improved sanitation. Final winners will be announced at World Water Week in Stockholm, Sweden in August. The first prize winner will receive $50,000 with $25,000 for second place. All shortlisted candidates will receive one year's full access to relevant RELX Group content such as the Journal of Water Research and ScienceDirect, the flagship database from RELX Group division Elsevier, to help them advance their work.

This is the eighth year of the RELX Group Environmental Challenge and the shortlisted projects offer a range of affordable and accessible solutions to water and sanitation challenges in the developing world.

The RELX Group Environmental Challenge prioritises solutions that are replicable, scalable, sustainable and innovative. They must also have practical applicability and involve local communities and other key stakeholders.

The 2018 RELX Group Environmental Challenge shortlisted projects are:

HandyPod, an affordable sanitation solution by Cambodia based social enterprise, Wetlands Work (WW!), developed for floating communities or those seasonally affected by flooding. HandyPod is a sewage treatment process, designed with input from local communities, that offers a low maintenance, chemical free solution, utilising gravity flow rather than external energy sources. Following a successful pilot in 10 floating villages over two years, the HandyPod will be introduced in Chhnok Tru, a large urban floating community with an adjacent floodplain community of stilt houses. WW! has also developed a strategy to create awareness and market demand for sanitation solutions in floating communities.

Flexcravator, an innovative pit latrine emptying device developed by North Carolina State University. Every day, pit latrines receive an estimated 0.6 billion kg of faeces and 2.1 billion kg of urine from 1.77 billion people around the world. Once pits are full, fecal sludge has to be removed, before being transported and treated - often a manual task due to an accumulation of trash in the latrine. Flexcrator aims to offer a pit emptying technology that can empty trash filled pits at a competitive cost, removing the need for high-risk and unsanitary manual methods. On completion of design testing, the Flexcravator team hope to move into production phase and put the technology in the hands of sanitation entrepreneurs around the world.

A project to provide safe water for pastoralists by ICSEE (International Collaborative for Science, Education, and the Environment), a non-profit organisation based in the United States and Tanzania. The project seeks to expand the adoption of solar powered pumping and chlorination systems to provide safe water to 2,500 Maasai families currently at risk due to the polluted surface-water ponds used.

A riverbank filtration project by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), a not-for-profit research institute located in Bengaluru, India that aims to provide villagers in rural areas with safe, affordable, and reliable drinking water using a low-cost, easily replicated approach to treating polluted surface water resources with riverbank filtration wells. The project expects to provide at least 5,000 people with access to safe drinking water with the potential of scaling it up to reach 300,000 in the Kali River watershed.

Projects were evaluated by judges including Dr Mark van Loosdrecht, Professor of Biochemical Engineering, Delft University of Technology and Valerie Labi, Director of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for iDE and founder of Sama Sama in Ghana, a sanitation social enterprise which uses a direct sales approach to increase people's demand for improved toilets.

To learn more, please visit the Environmental Challenge website where you can see videos of previous winning projects and details on RELX Group's corporate responsibility agenda.

Enquiries
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Notes to Editors

About RELX Group Environmental Challenge

The RELX Group Environmental Challenge was launched in 2011 and is awarded to projects that best demonstrate how they can provide sustainable access to safe water where it is presently at risk and/or access to improved sanitation. Projects must have clear practical applicability, address identified need, and advance related issues such as health, education, or human rights. According to the World Health Organisation and UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme 2017 report, some 3 in 10 people worldwide, or 2.1 billion, lack access to safe, readily available water at home, and 6 in 10, or 4.5 billion, lack safely managed sanitation. Poor access to safe water and sanitation contributes to health crises in many developing countries, and increasingly leads to violent conflict.

About RELX Group

RELX Group is a global provider of information and analytics for professional and business customers across industries. The Group serves customers in more than 180 countries and has offices in about 40 countries. It employs approximately 30,000 people of whom almost half are in North America. RELX PLC is a London listed holding company which owns 52.9% of RELX Group. RELX NV is an Amsterdam listed holding company which owns 47.1% of RELX Group. The shares are traded on the London, Amsterdam and New York Stock Exchanges using the following ticker symbols: London: REL; Amsterdam: REN; New York: RELX and RENX. The total market capitalisation is approximately £33bn, €37bn, $43bn.