SDG 6: A Capital Map, Design Principle and Risk Perspective for Investors

When the UN agreed on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals in 2015, it created a roadmap for “fixing the world” by 2030 – ending extreme poverty, stabilising the climate, protecting biodiversity and strengthening societies. (UNDP)

In that complex agenda, SDG 6 – Clean Water and Sanitation is not just one goal among many. It sits right at the centre. The UN itself describes water and sanitation as “at the very core of sustainable development” and stresses that SDG 6 underpins health, ecosystems and long-term resilience. (Sustainable Development Goals) UN-Water goes further: progress on SDG 6 drives progress across most other SDGs, and failing on water makes the rest of the agenda almost impossible. (UN-Water)

For professional investors, that centrality is not just a moral message. It is a strategic orientation:if your capital is meant to contribute to a more stable, liveable world, then SDG 6 is one of the most leveraged places to start.

A world that works – or doesn’t – runs through SDG 6

Consider what happens when SDG 6 is not achieved:

• Health (SDG 3) – Unsafe water and poor sanitation remain a leading cause of disease and child mortality. (un.org)
  

• Education and gender equality (SDG 4 & 5) – Girls miss school because of water-borne illness or unpaid care work; women spend hours each day fetching water and fuelwood. (High-Level Political Forum)
  

• Decent work and economic growth (SDG 8) – Businesses, hospitals, schools and cities cannot function reliably without stable water services. (ScienceDirect)
  

• Climate action and resilience (SDG 13) – Droughts, floods and heatwaves all translate first into water stress. Climate adaptation is, in large part, about managing water differently. (High-Level Political Forum)
  

• Life on land (SDG 15) – Over-extraction, pollution and deforestation degrade water-dependent ecosystems, accelerating biodiversity loss. (archive.uneca.org)
  

Multiple analyses now characterise water as a cross-cutting factor that connects almost the entire SDG agenda. (World Bank) If SDG 6 fails, the SDGs don’t just “fall short by one seventeenth” – large parts of the 2030 vision collapse with it.

That is why we say SDG 6 is central.

From UN icons to real assets: what SDG 6 looks like on the ground

From an investor’s perspective, SDG 6 is not an abstract blue logo. It shows up in very concrete project types:

• New water treatment plants and networks in rapidly growing cities that have never had full coverage.
  

• Rehabilitation of ageing plants that still supply millions of people but no longer meet modern standards.
  

• Decentral solutions for rural and indigenous communities where central networks will not arrive for many years.
  

• Smart operations and monitoring that reduce losses, stabilise supply and strengthen resilience.
  

At Grasshopper, we focus on exactly these kinds of drinking water infrastructure projects:

• Central infrastructure based on a modular technology concept for water treatment at plant capacities from a few to more than 1,000 million litres per day.

• Decentral water–climate solutions in rural areas, designed under the Gold Standard for the Global Goals, where climate finance pays for long-term access to safe drinking water for poor households.

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Both pillars are designed to translate the language of SDG 6 into tangible, financeable assets.

SDG 6 as a capital map – not just a policy goal

The UN 2030 Agenda is often read as a policy framework for governments. But for professional investors, it can also serve as a capital allocation map.

SDG 6 points to three realities that are directly relevant for investment:

1. Huge infrastructure gaps

   Hundreds of millions still lack safely managed drinking water, and existing systems are under pressure from growth and climate change. (un.org)
   

2. Massive financing needs

   International institutions estimate that achieving water-related goals requires trillions in infrastructure investment over the coming decades, far beyond what public budgets alone can provide. (World Bank)
   

3. Explicit call for partnerships

   The SDG 6 Global Acceleration Framework highlights the need for stronger partnerships, scaled technologies and mobilisation of financial resources, including private capital. (unsceb.org)
   

In other words, SDG 6 is not just a social aspiration – it is a structured demand signal for long-term capital in a critical real-asset sector.

Our lens as Grasshopper: SDG 6 as a design principle

At Grasshopper, we don’t start with “What product can we sell?” but with a different question:

How do we design water projects so they actually move the needle on SDG 6 – and still make sense for investors?

That leads to a few design choices that run through our work:

• Infrastructure before marketing

  We start from the logic of public water supply: master plans, utilities, tenders, technology, operations. Investors are invited into this reality – not sold a simplified story that ignores how the sector actually works.
  

• Public mandate, private participation

  Water remains a public service. Our role is to structure projects (often in PPP settings) where public utilities keep control, while private investors provide part of the long-term financing and benefit from the resulting payment streams – without privatisation.
  

• Standardisation and scalability

  Our modular technology concept for central plants and our programme-based approach for decentral solutions are deliberately standardised. This allows us to move from individual project stories to scalable portfolios that can be financed via instruments such as water–climate bonds or asset-backed structures linked to utility payments.
  

• Co-benefits by design, not by accident

  Our decentral Gold-Standard project, for example, is built so that climate protection (CO₂ reduction from avoided firewood use), forest and biodiversity protection, women’s empowerment and poverty reduction are integrated into the core logic of the model, not added afterwards as a “nice impact story”.
  

In all of this, SDG 6 is the anchor: if a project doesn’t clearly contribute to safe and sustainable drinking water services for people, it does not belong in our portfolio.

Why “SDG 6 is central” is also a risk perspective

For investors, SDG 6 is not only about opportunity; it is also about risk management.

• Macro risk – Countries that fail on water security face higher risks of social tension, migration, health crises and economic disruption.
  

• Transition risk – Companies and sectors that depend heavily on water (from agriculture to industry) are exposed if local water systems fail or become unreliable.
  

• Physical risk – Climate change will be felt “through water” in many portfolios: drought-driven power shortages, damaged infrastructure, flood events, crop failures. (High-Level Political Forum)
  

Allocating capital to strengthen drinking water infrastructure is therefore not only impact alignment; it is also a way to support the resilience of the broader economic system on which returns ultimately depend.

In that sense, SDG 6 is central in a second way:it helps stabilise the context in which all other investments operate.

A practical invitation to investors

The SDGs are often described as “a plan to save the world”. That can sound abstract – until you realise that much of this plan boils down to very concrete questions like:

• Does this city have a reliable supply of safe drinking water?

• Will this rural region still have forests in 20 years – or have they been cut down for firewood and agriculture?

• Can girls go to school instead of spending their days collecting water?

• Can hospitals, schools and businesses rely on basic services, even under climate stress?

These are SDG-6 questions. And they are also infrastructure and financing questions.

Our contribution as Grasshopper is to operate exactly at that interface:

• developing and structuring central and decentral water projects that make a real difference for SDG 6,

• and designing investment solutions that allow professional investors to participate – in a way that respects the public nature of water and matches institutional requirements.

If SDG 6 is central to the global agenda, then water must become central to long-term investment thinking as well.

We believe that over the next decade, leading investors will increasingly ask not only “What is my exposure to climate?” but also “What is my exposure to water – and what is my contribution to SDG 6?”

Helping to answer that second question is exactly where we see our role.