On 8th December 2025, PSIRU researchers Emanuele Lobina and Conor Gray gave a seminar presenting the following paper, “London and Paris Calling: From conspicuous accumulation to deep sustainable development in the water sector”.
This paper investigates the political economy of sustainable water development in the era of asset-based accumulation. A defining trait of the increasingly financialised privatisation of water supply and sanitation services is the rise to international prominence of private equity as a new breed of shareholder. This raises questions about:
Q1) the behavioural differences between private equity and more conventional private shareholders;
Q2) the compatibility between private equity’s conspicuous accumulation and sustainable development as the ultimate goal of water service provision;
Q3) the existence of more sustainable institutional reforms and the behavioural possibilities that these enable; and,
Q4) the social and political preconditions of such alternative reforms.
To answer these questions, we devise a framework around the notion of deep sustainable water development. This corresponds to the simultaneous attainment of sustainability at economic, social, and ecological levels and implies that financial sustainability is instrumental to the development of the served communities and their environment (Lobina, 2019). We also compare and contrast the divergent institutional trajectories in London and Paris.
In London, water and sewerage were privatised in 1989. The local private utility, Thames Water, has seen a succession of private shareholders; among them, the private equity firm Macquarie (2006-2017). During this period, complex financial engineering left the utility highly indebted as shareholder remuneration was prioritised over service quantity and quality, leading to severe underinvestment and underperformance (Lobina, 2019; Hall and Lobina, 2024; Hall and Gray, 2025).
In Paris, the privatisation of water supply was reversed in 2010 with the appointment of municipal service provider Eau de Paris. In the absence of a profit maximisation imperative under public ownership and having received a clear political mandate, Eau de Paris reduced tariffs while making good progress towards deep sustainable water development. This includes enjoying a high level of self-financing and low indebtedness (Lobina et al., 2021).
The upshot is manifold:
A1) The main discriminant between the behaviour of private equity and that of more conventional private shareholders is the former’s predatory predisposition;
A2) Private equity’s proclivity to conspicuous accumulation means that financialised privatisation is more likely to undermine deep sustainable water development than conventional privatisation;
A3) Public ownership is a viable conduit for the political willingness to attain deep sustainable water development; and,
A4) Sustainable water service reform requires an onto-ethical turn among policy participants, enabling an appreciation of the managerial flexibility afforded by public ownership and the urgency of ethically-oriented planning.
For references and further information, contact Emanuele Lobina.