BREAKTHROUGH INNOVATION SUSTAINABLE TECHNOLOGY
OUR COMMITMENT TO ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY Environmental Sustainability is an integral part of Crystal Lagoons. Every day, we focus on developing technologies driven by the efficient use of scarce resources such as water and energy, and at the same time improving people’s quality of life, all around the world.
ENERGY EFFICIENT Crystal Lagoons’ technology uses only 2% of the electricity compared to conventional swimming pool filtration systems. External verifications of our very low electricity consumption have been performed by Bureau Veritas, an international renowned certification and verification technology.
Bureau Veritas concluded that the energy consumption of a lagoon using Crystal Lagoons technology is between 1,4% - 2,2% of the electricity used by a pool of the same size operating with conventional swimming pool technology.
BETTER USE OF WATER RESOURCES
= Lagoon
Crystal Lagoons 7 acres
= Park
7 acres
Crystal Lagoons’ technology can use any type of water: freshwater, brackish water, and seawater, with operational lagoons around the world using all these different water types.
Brackish water sources are found in abundance in the world, even in desert areas, and have no alternative use. Therefore, use of brackish water in our crystal clear lagoons maximizes their use.
Compared with a golf course, our crystal clear lagoons offer a higher usage ratio of gallons of water used per person. More people can enjoy the beach and a body of water, versus the limited number of sportsmen that use a golf course, creating a recreational venue for the whole family.
= Agricultural Use 7 acres
= Golf Course 18 holes
LOW WATER CONSUMPTION Crystal Lagoons’ sustainable technology requires only half of the water that is required by a park of the same size, and a 7 acre crystal clear lagoon uses up to 30 times less water than an 18-hole golf course. Lagoons powered by Crystal Lagoons’ technology are filled just once throughout the project’s lifetime and operate on a closed circuit, so it is only necessary to compensate for water lost to natural evaporation. Crystal Lagoons has developed an evaporation control film-based technology that can reduce evaporation rates from crystal clear lagoons by up to 50% compared to natural evaporation rates. In areas of high rainfall, it may not be necessary to provide make-up water for the lagoons, as they can capture direct rainwater, providing a natural refill to compensate for evaporation. Our crystal clear lagoons can represent a valuable reserve of high quality water for periods of drought.
VERY LOW CHEMICAL CONSUMPTION Crystal Lagoons’ technology uses up to
100
times less chemicals than conventional swimming pool and drinking water treatment technologies, all of which helps to reduce excessive costs and further environmental damage.
Crystal Lagoons’ patented solution consists of a pulse based disinfection system, which allows for chemicals to be applied with a certain time frequency according to specific growth cycles of microorganisms, and therefore do not require a high and permanent residual chlorine level to be maintained for conventional swimming pool technology.
The application of additives is coordinated by strategically located injectors and/or sensors managed from the Crystal Lagoons Control Center (CLCC) through the internet. Specially designed systems and sensors continually report specific physicochemical and additional water quality parameters through a proprietary telemetry platform, m a n a g e d a n d o p e ra te d through the cloud from the CLCC, ensuring excellent water quality 24/7.
EXCELLENT WATER QUALITY The microbiological and physicochemical water quality in our crystal clear lagoons complies with the most stringent international sanitary standards, such as the United States Environmental Protection Agency Direct Contact Regulations. The excellent quality of the water has been validated by studies of independent international organizations that certify that its sanitary quality parameters exceed those of sea water, lakes, and even of public swimming pools, as measured in parallel in each study.
*San Alfonso is seawater and Laguna Vista is fresh water.
SUSTAINABLE CONSTRUCTION
Unlike traditional concrete swimming pools, our crystal clear lagoons are built with a plastic geomembrane bottom that is completely flexible and helps reduce concrete usage. The flexible geomembrane material withstands most natural disasters without compromising the lagoons’ structure. An example of this is that none of the projects using Crystal Lagoons’ technology in Chile sustained any damage during the 2010 earthquake.
GLOBALLY AWARDED Additionally, this technology has been recognized by international awards, of which the following stand out:
Stevie® Awards 2016 In 2016, Crystal Lagoons was awarded with two Gold Stevie Awards: one for Innovator of the Year for its Founder, Fernando Fischmann, for his “sustainable vision for water usage”, in connection with the cutting edge technologies and processes he has developed using water, his lagoons, and for their widespread applicability to many contexts and industries; and the other for Energy Industry Innovation of the Year in connection with the proprietary water desalination technology, which uses no energy, that he pioneered. The Stevie Awards are the world’s premier business awards, and are commonly considered to be “the business world’s own Oscars,” and, thus, constitute major internationally recognized awards in the business sphere. Prior award winners include global household names such as Accenture and Cisco Systems; individual Stevie Award winners include business legends such as Steve Jobs of Apple and Jeff Bezos of Amazon, putting Mr. Fischmann in the ranks of major influential international figures.
The technology’s environmental contribution enabled Crystal Lagoons to obtain patents in the U.S. in record time, via the Fast Track for Green Technologies that only assesses technologies that represent a real environmental contribution to the world, implemented by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
Green Apple Environment Awards 2016 and 2017 Crystal Lagoons was awarded for its second consecutive year in a ceremony that took place at Westminster Palace in London in June 2017, for Built Environment and Architectural Heritage 2017. In the 2016 Green Apple Environment Awards, Crystal Lagoons’ technology was selected from amongst 500 applications. As a result of the company’s forward-thinking environmental credentials and business savvy, Crystal Lagoons received this major international award—taking home the Gold Award for South America in the International Environmental Best Practices category—in connection with its proprietary sustainable cooling technology for industrial processes.
Green Means Green Award 2017 In May 2017, Crystal Lagoons was awarded with the Green Means Green Award from the Coral Gables Chamber of Commerce, which recognizes the sustainability of the company’s innovative water treatment technology, and its low water consumption.
GLOBALLY AWARDED
National Environment Award 2015 Crystal Lagoons won the National Environment Award 2015, which was organized by the Recyclápolis Foundation, El Mercurio and Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, with the support of the Chilean Government. The award honors entities and sustainable projects that are committed to safeguarding the environment and was presented by former President of Chile, Sebastián Piñera. Crystal Lagoons received this new award in the “Water” category for its “sustainable cooling technology for industrial processes”. This consists of closed-circuit cooling technology that was tested at the San Isidro power plant, where a cooling lagoon was built and used as part of the plant’s cooling process. One of the advantages of this technology is that it avoids the negative impact generated by industrial processes on natural ecosystems.