Water is the foundation of life. It shapes landscapes, regulates climates, and sustains every living organism. Yet on the only known inhabited planet, this essential resource faces a growing crisis: although 70% of Earth’s surface is covered by water, less than 1% is actually available for human use. Most of it is consumed by agriculture and industry, while in households, activities like bathing and flushing use vast amounts of drinking water for non-essential purposes. The bathroom, therefore, has become a key space for innovation, where technology and design can help redefine how we use and reuse this vital element.
In response to these challenges, Hansgrohe, one of the world’s leading bathroom and kitchen specialists, has spent decades developing solutions for sustainable water management. In 2023, the company unveiled its Green Vision Beyond Water concept, reimagining the bathroom with 90% less water and energy consumption. The concept separates water uses and maximizes recycling, redirecting shower water for toilet flushing. Though still a prototype, Green Vision embodies Hansgrohe’s commitment to drastically reducing resource consumption without sacrificing quality or comfort, and anticipates the regulatory and cultural shifts that make such innovations increasingly urgent and achievable. Alongside this, Hansgrohe launched the ECO 2030 initiative, pledging that by 2030 all water-using products across both the Hansgrohe and AXOR lines will feature integrated water-saving technologies.
This includes flow-limiting aerators, spray innovations that maintain comfort with less water, and faucet cartridges like CoolStart that conserve energy. Combined, these efforts show Hansgrohe’s holistic approach: tackling water waste, energy use, and even material sustainability, such as recyclable packaging and recycled plastics in products, to push the industry forward.
The Hydraloop partnership
In this context, Hansgrohe has announced a strategic partnership with the Dutch water-tech company Hydraloop to accelerate the adoption of greywater recycling systems in residential and commercial projects. The Hansgrohe–Hydraloop system is a compact, high-tech unit that collects, treats, and safely reuses water within buildings. It captures greywater—wastewater from showers, bathtubs, washing machines, and even HVAC condensate—and purifies it through an innovative, multi-stage process. Notably, the system requires no consumable filters or harsh chemicals.
Unlike conventional filtration or chemical treatments, Hydraloop’s six-step process combines physical and biological methods, including sedimentation, flotation, foam fractionation, an aerobic bioreactor (MBBR) and UV disinfection. The result is clear, certified water suitable for non-potable uses such as toilet flushing, laundry, garden irrigation or topping up swimming pools. Integrated IoT connectivity also enables remote monitoring of performance and savings through a dedicated app.
“Striking a balance between user experience, efficiency, resource conservation, and regulatory requirements is a challenge,” says Hans Jürgen Kalmbach, CEO of Hansgrohe Group. “We are convinced that this effective and reliable solution will enable us to tap into the potential of greywater recycling—especially for hotels, public and semi-public buildings, and all construction projects that focus on sustainability.”
Largely automated and intelligent, the system channels greywater through its treatment stages and stores the purified water in an integrated tank for redistribution. From there, it can be used for functions such as toilet flushing, garden irrigation, or laundry. In practice, it transforms water that would otherwise be lost “down the drain” into a valuable resource for safe, non-potable reuse in daily activities.
From vision to reality
Although the partnership is recent, the technology is already in operation in benchmark projects with focus on hotels, public, and semi-public buildings. At the voco Brussels City North Hotel (Belgium), five Hydraloop units treat shower water from 58 rooms, saving about 1.2 million liters per year, while Hansgrohe fixtures ensure comfort and efficiency. At the Majid Al Futtaim Mosque (Dubai), ablution water is collected, treated, and reused for irrigation and flushing, helping the building achieve BREEAM “Excellent” certification. In eco-lodges in Namibia and luxury villas in Dubai, greywater recycling supports off-grid sustainability goals in arid regions. Hydraloop’s technology is modular and scalable: multiple units and rooms can be linked efficient in a cascade to increase capacity, all feeding into a shared reservoir of treated water. There are also examples beyond hospitality: sports stadiums and large community facilities already use cascades of Hydraloop units to reuse water from locker room showers.
At ISH 2025 in Frankfurt, Hansgrohe showcased the system as part of its commitment to circular water management. The recycling technology was presented alongside other innovation fields from the brand, including shower heat recovery systems and closed-loop showers. This hands-on demonstration bridged the gap between the conceptual Green Vision and practical, market-ready solutions. As the company notes, “It allowed industry professionals and media to experience the technology’s compact design, seamless integration into a modern bathroom, and tangible potential to bring our sustainability goals to life.” Together, these presentations illustrated how the principles of reduce, reuse, and recycle can guide bathroom design as a concrete, continuous, and user-friendly experience.
Energy efficiency and regulatory innovation
Beyond greywater recycling, Hansgrohe is also investing in solutions aimed at energy efficiency. Among them are shower heat recovery systems, which reuse the energy of wastewater to preheat cold water, significantly reducing consumption without compromising comfort. Another area of research is the closed-loop shower, in which water is continuously filtered, reheated, and recirculated during the shower, achieving reductions of up to 90% in both water and energy use. Although regulatory restrictions still limit its application in many countries, Hansgrohe’s InnoLab continues to refine the technology in anticipation of future policy changes.
This action goes beyond product development. Kalmbach serves on the executive board of Water Europe, a platform that brings together industry and public policy across the European Union. As he explains: “Circular solutions in buildings, where water of different qualities are used for different purposes, offer enormous opportunities. To take advantage of these, the regulatory framework must be adapted to allow innovation.” The sustainable approach is systemic: saving water, recovering heat, reducing material waste, and influencing regulatory frameworks. As Kalmbach puts it: “Our goal is to provide customers with relaxed moments of well-being, without a guilty conscience towards the environment.”
