"Putting sustainability at the heart of your company's development: benefits and challenges" by Agueda Perez — Full Stack Software Developer at CityTaps, Paris. CityTaps was launched in 2015 with the aim of ‘running water in every home'. Sustainability is in its DNA and has informed each of the company’s decisions since its inception. In this presentation, we will examine how we have been able to leverage sustainability to foster talent attraction and motivation and maximize our product’s impact. In doing so we will explain the challenges that we have faced in defining precisely what sustainability means for our product and how we should address them. About Agueda: Agueda holds a BA in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from Oxford University and an MA in International Relations from Sciences Po. Looking for a new challenge she made a career change and became a full stack developer at CityTaps after 10+ years in international project management in non-profit and education organizations.

1. CityTaps
©
2021

2. Running Water In Every
Urban Home

3. CityTaps
©
2021
Health
Contamination
from dirty
containers
Urban people living at the bottom
of the pyramid struggle to pay
monthly bills from water utilities
and cannot easily connect to piped
water networks. As a result, they
pay a triple tax on poverty, in
health, money, and time.
• Non-Revenue Water (NRW) at 30-80%, affecting available
water and revenue
• Accounts receivable at 6-24 months of turnover, affecting
access to financing
• Subscribers disconnected for high arrears (20-40%),
impacting revenue and reducing coverage
Water utilities in emerging markets face 3 main challenges to
bring running water to 100% of their service area 100% of the time:
Sustainability is in CityTaps’ DNA
Our vision: “Running water in every home”
Money
20-100 times
regulated
tariffs
Time
2 hours per day
spent fetching
water

4. CityTaps
©
2021
Top-ups by Mobile Money at
any time, for any amount
from anywhere
Check real-time balance by
mobile phone at any time
Top-ups
Receive notifications by
SMS or WhatsApp in case of
low credit, leaks or abnormal
consumption
Notifications
detect fraud - detect leaks
and/or blocked meters
History of water consumption
Data analytics:
Automatic Pay-As-You-Go
Account management
Top-ups by Mobile Money at
any time, for any amount
from anywhere
Check real-time balance by
mobile phone at any time
Top-ups
Measures accurate consumption
Transmits consumption data
and alerts every 30 minutes (default)
Measurement
LoRaWAN
or GPRS
A sustainable solution
CTSuite

5. CityTaps
©
2021
For water utilities:
• Money upfront: no more
accounts receivable
• Guaranteed arrears recovery
• Improved creditworthiness
• Data to find leaks and
reduce NRW
Sustainable for whom?
B2B2C
For subscribers:
• Pay at any time, with any
phone, for any amount for
reliable water service at home
• Better budget management
• Immediate reconnexion
• Repay outstanding debts in
individualized daily
micropayments

6. CityTaps
©
2021
Sustainable recruitment
CityTaps’ team
8 nationalities
0%
Turnover in
2022
A common
purpose

7. CityTaps
©
2021
Why do we recruit sustainably?
• Higher attractivity
• Lower lead times for recruitment
• Lower turnover
• Higher product quality
• Higher employee engagement
• Higher focus on the customer
Sustainable recruitment
Benefits and
challenges
How do we recruit sustainably?
• We are clear about our sustainability
goals
• We hire people who are really
passionate about them
• We invest in onboarding
• We focus on diversity
• We offer flexible work arrangements
• We involve employees in company
decisions and offer transparency
What are the challenges of sustainable
recruitment?
• It requires more investment in
defining and spelling out the goals
and the actions taken to achieve them
• It requires more investment in training
• It means you have to talk the talk and
walk the walk

8. CityTaps
©
2021
Building sustainability into your product
A case study

9. CityTaps
©
2021
Building sustainability into your product
Key takeaways
Leveraging sustainability will help you:
• Build a better product
• Recruit and retain talent
• Define company goals more clearly
And it brings some new challenges that are definitely worth
taking on…
• It brings complexity in defining the product
• It is not a quick win and can only be done if it is taken
seriously at all levels
• It needs to be spelled out and challenged on a regular basis

10. Running Water In Every
Urban Home
&