Blog: What IWA Glasgow 2026 means for water resilience and prosperity - Alex Plant CEO

“This is a once‑in‑a‑generation opportunity — not just to showcase innovation, but to reshape how water is viewed, valued and managed.”

Alex Plant
CEO, Scottish Water

Water is moving up the global agenda — and it's happening fast.

Glasgow will be right at the centre of it when the city hosts around 10,000 leaders, innovators and decision-makers for the International Water Association World Water Congress in early October, at a moment when the challenges facing water have never been more urgent.  

 

Climate change, rising demand and pressure on nature are forcing a rethink of how we plan, invest and collaborate. Glasgow 2026 is a chance to bring the world together — not just to discuss the challenge, but to accelerate solutions. As CEO of Scottish Water, I am hugely proud to be serving as Co-President of the Congress alongside Peter Simpson, former Chief Executive of Anglian Water. For Scottish Water —for Scotland — and for the UK — this is a major moment.

The conversations in Glasgow will go far beyond infrastructure and engineering — they will focus on how water supports thriving economies, sustainable communities, and a healthier environment across the globe.
 
And this most critical of conversations cannot be the water sector talking to itself. Water sits at the centre of energy, housing, health,, agriculture, planning, transport, and economic growth. The Congress will therefore bring together governments, regulators, utilities, investors, and industry to think system-wide about climate, nature, and growth. The Programme that the IWA Committee has put together will focus on moving beyond end-of-pipe solutions and towards upstream interventions, embedding whole-system thinking and planning, driving cross-sector collaboration and recognising the foundational nature of water and waste water.

Challenge

The scale of the challenge demands nothing less; get this right, and we can deliver resilience and prosperity at a much lower cost to society than if we continue to work in isolation.
 
The Congress theme — Water Action: the Path to Resilience and Prosperity — reflects that ambition. Across the world, pressures are mounting, and expectations are rising, reinforcing the need to think differently — to work across sectors, plan for the long term and move faster from ambition to delivery.

Scotland's approach

And Scotland has a strong story to share. Our policy and regulatory framework — based on long-term planning, public ownership through an arms’ length public corporation, and robust independent economic regulation — has enabled a steady and sustained approach to investment. This model supports decisions that balance affordability with resilience, prioritise asset health, and allow us to plan for the long term rather than respond to short-term pressures. It provides stability, clarity of purpose between government, regulators, and delivery partners, creating the conditions needed to invest consistently and innovate with confidence.
 
Within that framework, we are already working with nature, strengthening resilience and collaborating across partners. From catchment-scale thinking and nature-based solutions to digital innovation, low-carbon treatment and blue-green infrastructure, Scottish Water is developing practical solutions that can help build more resilient services. For example, last year we completed our £235m investment to link the Glasgow and Ayrshire networks, improving security of supply for one million people.

Hosting the world in Glasgow allows us and colleagues across the UK to showcase that kind of innovation — not to say we have all the answers, but to share what we are learning and to learn just as much from others.
 
Glasgow 2026 is also about something bigger: tackling global water poverty. Billions of people still live without reliable access to clean water and sanitation. That is one of the defining inequalities of our time, and where access to water and sanitation is not available, there is a disproportionate impact on women and girls.  

Summit

The Congress will bring together governments, utilities, investors, and innovators to focus on unlocking funding and scaling solutions that can accelerate progress. A key element within the Congress will be the high-level summit that Peter Simpson and I will host. This will focus on how to progress towards Sustainable Development Goal 6 and closing the global financing gap for water and sanitation for all.

We want that summit to conclude with a clear, practical outcome — The Glasgow Framework — that helps close the gaps that are currently leaving billions of people across the world without adequate access to safe, clean water and effective sanitation.
 
The Glasgow Framework will aim to do four big things:

• Provide clarity on what nations need their water systems to deliver over the short, medium, and long-term. This should include ambitions for universal access to clean drinking water and effective sanitation, service quality, climate resilience, financial resilience, and environmental outcomes.
• Develop a broad understanding of what investment is needed to achieve these objectives, at what cost, and in what sequence.
• Enable systems that provide the funding and regulatory frameworks to unlock investment - private and public.
• Measure progress against those objectives through effective independent economic regulation, robust data systems, and transparent reporting that build confidence among governments, financiers, and consumers alike.

The conversations shaping this work are not happening in isolation. As we head into the Global Water Summit 2026 in Madrid in May, there is a growing recognition across the sector that we must move beyond viewing water simply as a commodity and instead fully embrace its wider social, environmental, and economic value.

Shift

This shift matters. When investment decisions are grounded in social value — the combined impact on communities, the environment, and the economy — they do more than improve infrastructure. They build trust. They strengthen resilience. And they help ensure the benefits of investment are felt more fairly across society.
 
There is also increasing emphasis on global collaboration — governments, regulators, utilities, and investors working together to unlock funding, scale innovation, and accelerate progress. That spirit of partnership is essential if we are to deliver the transition to more sustainable, climate-resilient water systems, and it sits at the heart of what we are trying to achieve through the Glasgow Framework.
 
Yes, this is ambitious, but it is also necessary. Without action, billions of people across the world will continue to be denied access to the most essential of resources.  

Shaping the future

For me, being co-President of this Congress matters because it reflects something fundamental about Scottish Water’s role. We deliver essential services every day, but we also have a responsibility to help shape the future. That means investing in innovation, working in partnership, sharing what we learn. Bringing the global water community to Scotland allows us to do just that — to contribute, to collaborate, and to lead.
 
Scotland has shown, time and again, that when we host the world, we do it with pride — and we rise to the moment. Glasgow has done this many times; the IWA World Water Congress & Exhibition in 2026 will put us on a global stage again.
 
The conversations in Glasgow will matter far beyond Scotland — whether you live in Glasgow, Ghana, or Gauteng. This is a chance to showcase Scotland and the UK, share the innovation being developed here, and learn from global expertise. If you are a policymaker, regulator, investor, developer, or partner organisation, I encourage you to be part of it — join us in Glasgow, bring your ideas, and help turn water action into delivery.