Is legal innovation the key to unlocking water investment?

Water infrastructure is entering a new phase of development.  One defined by increasing complexity in how projects are financed, governed and sustained over time.  As climate uncertainty intensifies and water systems become more interconnected with energy, finance and digital technologies, the legal frameworks that support them are evolving rapidly.

At the heart of this shift is a growing recognition that the contracts themselves play a defining role in shaping outcomes.  They determine how risk is allocated, how value is created and how accountability is maintained across long-term, multi-stakeholder projects.  For global water companies operating across diverse regulatory and economic environments, legal architecture is becoming central to delivering infrastructure that is resilient, sustainable and investable.

ALMAR Water Solutions, part of Jameel Environmental Services, is on the frontline of this evolving environment.  ALMAR was established in 2016 with a mission is to improve the world’s water security, particularly for the most vulnerable global communities.  A decade later, it manages a growing portfolio of desalination, wastewater treatment, reuse and recycling programs.  With projects across Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, Africa, and Asia-Pacific, ALMAR designs, structures financing and operates systems across the full water cycle – from desalination and purification to wastewater treatment, reuse, distribution networks, and long-term operation and maintenance.

We spoke to Carlos Cosín, CEO of ALMAR Water Solutions, about how legal innovation is reshaping the water sector, and why the future of water will depend as much on legal craftsmanship as on technical expertise.

Q. Why is legal innovation so central to the future of water infrastructure?

The world’s next wave of water infrastructure will not be built by engineers alone.  It will be built by lawyers, through contracts that determine how risk, value, and accountability flow.  Behind every desalination plant, wastewater-reuse network, or basin-level partnership lies a web of agreements that are the operating system of cooperation between public authorities, financiers, and private operators.

For those of us who lead global water companies, legal craftsmanship has become as essential as technical excellence.  The complexity of this operating system is increasing faster than our collective ability to manage it, making legal design central to how infrastructure performs over time.

Increasingly, these contracts play a central role in aligning the long-term needs of clients seeking water security with providers capable of guaranteeing supply over multi-decade horizons.  When a client begins to rely on a specialized partner to secure water resources over 20 or 25 years, the nature of the relationship changes.  Contracts become the foundation of long-term partnership, supporting continuity, reliability and shared accountability.

Q. What is driving the growing complexity of modern water projects?

The modern water project sits at the intersection of multiple domains: infrastructure, environment, finance, and digital technology; each adding a layer of contractual sophistication.  A single wastewater-reuse plant, for instance, may combine design-build-operate contracts, long-term off-take agreements, multilateral guarantees, performance-based metrics tied to water quality and energy use, and digital-data clauses covering real-time monitoring and AI-driven optimization.

The legal ecosystem needed to align these moving parts resembles a constellation rather than a linear chain.  Yet many jurisdictions still rely on templates designed for conventional infrastructure.  This mismatch creates both a challenge and a market: the need to translate physical water flows into contractual architectures that can survive decades of technological and regulatory change.

Q. How does the ‘geography of risk’ influence water investment and project design?

Water is local; finance is global.  That dissonance is the first source of tension between operators and lawyers.  For an international water company, a single project may involve 15 to 20 different risk domains, from hydrological variability and regulatory change to currency exposure, tariff adjustments, and social license conditions.  These are not abstract; they determine whether a long-term concession yields a stable return or collapses under political pressure.

Legal practice in such markets must accommodate both local unpredictability and international enforceability.  The traditional model of transferring risk down the contractual chain no longer works, particularly where assets operate in communities and risks are visible, political, and essential.  Excessive risk-shifting undermines sustainability.

What we increasingly need are shared-risk frameworks: adaptive contracts that align incentives between public and private actors, supported by transparent adjustment mechanisms for droughts, energy shocks, or regulatory reform.  This requires what I like to call ‘trust engineering’ as well as creative legal drafting, with mechanisms of disclosure, mediation, and joint performance review embedded into the legal framework, keeping collaboration viable over time.

Q. Why is it important for water contracts to evolve over time rather than remain fixed like standard contracts?

In water, time is risk.  Infrastructure designed for 30 years must operate in a regulatory and climatic context that will change multiple times before the asset matures.  Lawyers working with water companies often return to renegotiate contracts as the context they were originally created for has changed.  Factors such as climate volatility, new environmental standards, or even technological leaps (such as energy-neutral desalination or real-time digital twins) alter the economics of the original deal.

Static legal instruments cannot accommodate dynamic ecosystems.  The real frontier is contracts that evolve, incorporating step-in rights, performance corridors, and periodic review clauses triggered by objective metrics rather than political negotiation.  This means breaking with precedent: moving from the idea of a contract as a fixed equilibrium to one as a governance process.  The water sector can be a testing ground for that evolution.

Q. Why are so many water projects considered ‘non-bankable’, and how can this be addressed?

Every water executive faces the same paradox: the projects that most need investment are often the hardest to finance.  They are fragmented, local, and frequently perceived as non-bankable.

Legal innovation can bridge that gap.  Structuring blended-finance instruments, escrow arrangements, and outcome-based contracts requires a level of precision that only multidisciplinary legal teams can provide.  But the market for such services is still thin.

One of the core tensions lies between standardization and customization.  Lenders require predictable terms, while local authorities demand context-specific safeguards.  Too much standardization undermines legitimacy; too much customization reduces bankability.  The solution lies in modular design: legal templates with adjustable parameters, pre-approved by financiers but open to local adaptation.  Some development banks are already working on such frameworks.

For this to scale, law firms must engage earlier, during the structuring of the deal, rather than being confided to execution.  For our industry, early legal engagement is no longer a cost, it is a form of risk insurance.  Ultimately, bankability is strengthened when contracts reflect long-term operational reliance on secure water supply.

Q. How is the definition of ‘performance’ in water projects evolving?

Performance used to mean cubic meters delivered or treatment levels achieved.  Today, it also includes carbon emissions, energy use, circular-economy metrics, and social inclusion.  Embedding these multi-dimensional outcomes into a contract is both a science and an art.  For lawyers, the challenge is to translate sustainability into enforceable language.  For companies, it is to commit to measurable results without paralyzing innovation.

As these relationships evolve, so too do the key performance indicators that underpin them. The value of water, measured in terms of reliability, resilience and continuity of supply, becomes an important reference point in decision-making.  This shift elevates the level of dialogue between clients and providers, positioning water as a strategic asset within operations.

We are learning that overly rigid key performance indicators can backfire.  What works better are tiered performance bands: clear minimums, ambitious targets, and incentives for over-achievement.  In this context, contracts need to support balanced, long-term partnership agreements, ensuring that both parties remain aligned as conditions evolve over time.

Q. What role does data and digitalization now play in water governance?

As water systems go digital, the contractual terrain expands into data ownership, privacy, cybersecurity, and AI governance.  For water companies, data is both an asset and a liability.  The central question has shifted from who builds the infrastructure to who controls the intelligence it produces.

We need legal expertise that can define how data is allocated between operators, public authorities, and consumers; how predictive algorithms are audited for bias and accuracy; and how cybersecurity obligations are shared across contractors.

Data clauses are now as critical as tariff clauses.  They determine the transparency, resilience, and even ethics of the project.  In this sense, lawyers are becoming the custodians of digital integrity in the water sector.

Q. Why is dispute prevention becoming more important than dispute resolution?

The complexity of water contracts makes dispute avoidance as valuable as arbitration.  Many projects fail because trust erodes between stakeholders, even where legal frameworks are clear.

Progressive legal teams are embedding collaborative governance mechanisms into contracts: standing committees, neutral technical experts, and early-warning protocols.  These create channels for course correction before differences escalate.

In a sector where delays can cost millions and reputations can erode overnight; ‘preventive lawyering’ is the next frontier.  The goal is not to eliminate conflict, but to institutionalize dialogue.

Q. What ethical considerations must be reflected in water contracts?

Beyond structure and performance lies a deeper question: who benefits from the legal design?  Water companies operate under public scrutiny, and our legitimacy depends on fairness – on tariffs that reflect value but remain affordable, on procurement that is competitive yet inclusive, and on risk allocation that does not externalize vulnerability onto communities.

For law firms working in the sector, this ethical dimension is becoming central.  The ability to frame contracts that uphold transparency, equity, and long-term stewardship has become a strategic consideration.  Regulators and investors are beginning to evaluate what we build and how our contracts embody responsibility.

Q. What does the future of collaboration in the water sector look like?

What the water industry and the legal profession share is exposure to time: both must think decades ahead.  A desalination plant or wastewater system conceived today must withstand regulatory, climatic, and financial shifts for a generation.

We therefore need a joint culture of foresight, of continuous dialogue between engineers, financiers, and lawyers to anticipate how projects will evolve.  For law firms, this means moving beyond transactional work into strategic advisory.  For companies like ALMAR Water Solutions, it means involving legal partners in early scenario planning as well as for dispute resolution.

The ultimate success metric is not the absence of litigation, but the continuity of service.  That, ultimately, is what binds our professions.  We are not only managing risk; we are designing resilience.

A new blueprint for resilient water infrastructure

As water systems become more complex and more critical to economic and social stability, the frameworks that govern them must evolve in parallel.  Contracts are evolving into dynamic systems that shape how infrastructure performs, adapts and endures over time.

These developments reflect a broader shift within the sector towards shared risk, adaptive governance, and deeper, long-term partnerships between clients and providers.  As water security becomes more critical to industrial and economic activity, contracts must increasingly align the needs of users with operators capable of guaranteeing supply over decades.

This evolution is already reshaping how projects are structured, how performance is measured, and how value is understood across the sector.  Ultimately, the success of future water infrastructure will not be measured solely by what is built, but by how effectively it is structured to withstand uncertainty.  In a water-stressed world, the ability to design contracts that evolve, align incentives and sustain trust may prove to be as important as the infrastructure itself.