Sweco Belgium

Water strategies for pharma: from purification to efficient use

Healthcare and life sciences are essential to our well‑being, and the pharmaceutical industry plays a vital role in developing medicines and treatments that improve quality of life. At the same time, the sector faces significant challenges in managing water. Water is a critical resource in many pharmaceutical processes, including drug manufacturing, equipment cleaning and disinfection, cooling, and steam generation.

Safeguarding both water quality and water efficiency is essential—not only to control costs, but also to comply with strict regulatory and environmental requirements. This ranges from purifying municipal water to meet GMP standards, to treating wastewater in line with discharge limits. Sweco provides specialised solutions to address these challenges. In addition, our consultants advise on optimising water use through measures such as reduction and reuse, delivering both sustainability benefits and cost savings.

Sweco has extensive experience in the pharmaceutical sector. Our consultants understand the GMP requirements for specific water streams within drug manufacturing processes, including Water for Injection (WFI), Clean Steam and Purified Water (PW).

Water challenges in the pharmaceutical industry

Our water consultants regularly receive highly specific questions from pharmaceutical companies relating to water use and purification. In practice, these typically concern:

Water audits
Assessment of industrial wastewater discharges from water treatment plants

Below, we take a closer look at these challenges and our solutions.

1. Water audit

A water audit provides pharmaceutical companies with a detailed inventory of all water streams within a facility. This forms a critical basis for informed decision‑making on water savings and optimisation. As part of this process, our water experts focus on several key steps:

Mapping water streams: identifying and analysing all water streams across the site
Optimising technologies: improving existing systems to enable more efficient water use
Reusing water streams: integrating reuse loops based on water quality and purity
Water recovery: recovering water following advanced treatment
Heat recovery: capturing heat from water streams for applications such as steam production, high‑temperature distribution loops and cooling towers

Water quality and recovery

For critical streams such as Water for Injection, Clean Steam and Purified Water, municipal water is often the preferred source due to its consistent quality and reliable composition.

At the same time, many other water streams can be reused for specific non‑critical applications. Rainwater, reject streams and treated process water can be used for black steam, flushing, irrigation, sanitary applications, cleaning and cooling. Depending on the intended downstream use, Sweco can propose appropriate treatment technologies, including:

Conventional membrane filtration: a separation technique for removing a wide range of contaminants
Closed Circuit Reverse Osmosis (CCRO): a recirculating RO system with high recovery rates and reduced concentrate flows
Evaporation: high‑temperature evaporation to recover water
Electrodialysis: particularly suitable for smaller installations and for reusing streams containing sulphate and chloride; the Ecologiepremie+ subsidy can help reduce costs when low‑grade water is upgraded to process or sanitary water

Sustainable cost savings

Latent heat generated during processes such as evaporation can often be recovered. Sweco’s water consultants work closely with our energy specialists to deliver integrated studies that maximise the use of residual heat within production processes. This results in solutions that combine sustainability gains with tangible cost reductions.

Case study: Water master plan for a confidential biopharmaceutical client

Sweco supported the pharmaceutical company in its ambition to reduce water consumption by 20% by 2030, compared with 2015 levels. As a first step, our water consultants carried out a water audit to analyse current consumption and identify water‑saving opportunities. This resulted in three key insights:

A comprehensive water balance is essential to identify the main water consumers and define effective saving measures. A discrepancy of 23% was identified between the volume of municipal water entering the site and the volume accounted for across individual systems. Sweco supported the company in designing a targeted measurement campaign to identify these losses.
Black steam recovery was lower than expected. Typically, recovery rates should be between 70% and 90%. Increasing recovery to 70% would reduce municipal water consumption by 3.5%, while achieving 90% recovery would deliver a 12.8% reduction.
Of the Highly Purified Water that is deionised, only 25% is ultimately used for Water for Injection, Clean Steam and laboratory applications.

Based on these insights, Sweco continues to support the pharmaceutical company in achieving its long‑term water‑reduction ambitions.

2. Assessment of industrial wastewater discharge from water treatment plants

Assessing water treatment plants at pharmaceutical sites is essential, as industrial wastewater discharges to surface water are affected by increased production volumes, process changes and increasingly stringent discharge standards.

Sweco evaluates the impact of industrial wastewater discharges on receiving water bodies using amongst others the Wezertoets, developed by the Flemish government in line with the EU Water Framework Directive. In addition, our in‑house expertise ensures compliance with discharge standards through the Best Available Techniques+ (BBT+) framework.

For treatment solutions, we distinguish between:

Removal technologies: pollutants are removed from the water and transferred to another phase (solid, liquid or gas). Examples include chemical oxidation, precipitation with milk of lime, pellet crystallisation and ion exchange.
Concentration technologies: these reduce the volume of contaminated water while increasing pollutant concentration, requiring further treatment. Examples include nanofiltration, reverse osmosis, CCRO, electrodialysis and pyrolysis.
Source‑control measures: reducing pollution at the source or within individual streams. These measures typically require less energy, lower investment and reduced operational follow‑up, and often involve substituting chemicals.

Good to know

In June 2025, the Wezertoets was updated, meaning that existing discharges and permit renewals must now be reassessed.

Hervergunning INEOS Aromatics voor haar chemieactiviteiten in Geel

As a design and engineering consultancy, Sweco goes beyond assessment alone. As an independent partner, we provide end‑to‑end support for the design and implementation of new or upgraded water treatment plants, working with multidisciplinary teams covering equipment, piping and electrical systems.

Case study: Environmental permit for a confidential biopharmaceutical client

To obtain an environmental permit, the client commissioned Sweco to investigate which BBT+ measures could further reduce chloride and sulphate concentrations in its wastewater discharge.

Sweco’s water consultants:

Analysed a range of removal and concentration technologies, alongside source‑control measures, capable of eliminating more than 75% of the existing pollutant load
Assessed technical feasibility as well as practical advantages and disadvantages
Evaluated cost‑effectiveness for viable solutions, including capital expenditure, operational costs and indirect costs, to calculate payback periods
Compared cost‑effectiveness with the company’s overall economic feasibility

This resulted in two clear recommendations.
For chloride reduction, replacing ferric chloride with aluminate.
For sulphate reduction, replacing sulphuric acid with CO₂.

Water management strategy: you can’t manage what you don’t measure

Pharmaceutical companies rely on multiple water sources and complex water streams. Water audits and wastewater treatment plant assessments are essential building blocks of a sustainable, efficient and cost‑effective water management strategy that meets stringent regulatory and environmental requirements. These components can also be delivered by Sweco as a single, integrated study.

Through a multidisciplinary approach, Sweco supports the pharmaceutical sector’s water challenges by focusing on:

Quality: delivering ultra‑pure water for critical pharmaceutical processes
Sustainability: minimising environmental impact through efficient water use and reuse
Efficiency: optimising water streams and maximising heat recovery

Discover how Sweco can help optimise your water use

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