EDI’s impact on the world

…is much bigger than the aeration systems we supply or numbers that show up on financial statements. As a part of the Axius Water platform, we are part of a global team that is meeting some of the critical challenges of our time with energy, determination, and creativity, at a growing scale that is making a real difference. Stronger Together, Axius Water’s 2022 Sustainability Report, shares the depth and breadth of how our platform is collectively addressing these challenges. You can download the report in full, but make sure to scroll down to discover how EDI specifically is contributing.

Restoring the Chesapeake Bay Watershed

Encompassing nearly 4,500 square miles, the massive Chesapeake Bay is the birthplace of much of the shrimp, oysters, and other aquatic life in the northern Atlantic Ocean. However, the rivers that flow into the Bay are laden with pollutants from the enormous 64,000 square mile Chesapeake Bay watershed, which extends from Delaware, the District of Columbia, and Maryland into Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, and even New York. Nutrient pollutants (i.e., nitrogen, phosphorous, and ammonia), including fertilizer from farms as far away as New York State, collect in the Bay, where they create hypoxic or dead zones that kill fish and harm other aquatic life.

Environmental Performance Water Quality Management

By helping its customers reduce pollution and improve water quality, Axius Water contributes to measurable progress toward SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation. EDI and Nexom design, manufacture, install, and service simple and sustainable technologies that enable small and remote communities to manage local waterway impacts with limited resources effectively.

“I come to work excited every day, knowing that I am making a difference in the world by helping our clients achieve cleaner water. I’m grateful that my education and experience enable me to help people and our planet.” –Tanner Devlin, PhD EDI Regional Sales Manager

Regulatory Compliance

We provide services and products our clients use to monitor and manage the quality of their wastewater discharge to comply with regulatory quality standards. EDI and Nexom sales and applications teams monitor changes to North American effluent discharge regulations at the federal, state, and provincial levels and develop strategies to help customers achieve compliance.

Climate Impact

Axius Water strives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, both directly in operations and through the implementation of technologies at customer sites. Because up to 70% of a typical wastewater plant’s energy consumption may be used to power the aeration process, EDI assists customers in optimizing their energy use by replacing, maintaining, or investing in the aeration process. EDI’s distinctive matrix membranes were designed specifically to operate at the lowest energy requirements for the longest interval, enabling customers to drive down their power requirements.

Find out more about our membranes and energy savings

Waste Management

While most of our operations do not involve or generate significant amounts of waste, we employ policies and procedures as necessary for the treatment, handling, storage, disposal, and regulatory compliance related to hazardous and nonhazardous waste, including chemicals. EDI and Nexom meet all requirements for the disposal of hazardous waste from operations. Most production processes do not produce hazardous waste.

Want to learn more?

Since we can’t cover the full breadth of ESG activities undertaken by Nexom and its fellow operating companies in the Axius Water platform, we’ve developed the “Stronger Together” 2022 Sustainability Overview.

Read Full Overview

Valuing People Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

We focus on creating a workplace in which employees feel welcome, affirmed, and safe. Axius Water is committed to creating workplaces that welcome and support people of all backgrounds. Soon, we are hoping to implement a DEI training program at EDI as well as ensuring the presence of an Affirmative Action/Equal Employment Opportunity program this upcoming year.

Worker Well-being

Our goal and responsibility is to return our valued employees safe and healthy to their families and loved ones every day. Our employees are mindful of maintaining robust health and safety programs that incorporate industry best practices and closely monitor our performance. EDI experienced three recordable employee injuries in 2021. In response, we have instituted Six Sigma standard protocols as it implemented routine observation facility walks to identify possible safety risks and proactively resolves any found issues. Reach out to our HR team to see about joining our growing team.

Responsible Business

We operate according to the principles of responsibility and reliability so stakeholders can depend on us.

Sustainability, Governance, and Strategy

We place consideration of ESG issues at the forefront of everything we do because we believe it’s the right thing to do. While responsibility for Axius’ ESG performance is shared by the Axius Water leadership team, in 2021, the company appointed the senior vice president of operations to lead and coordinate Axius’ ESG initiatives. The Axius Water board of directors reviews Axius’ ESG performance as part of its quarterly business planning and review process.

Business Continuity

Axius’ operating companies strive to build operational resilience and maintain business continuity because wastewater treatment facilities must operate continuously, through all weather conditions, and thus require an uninterrupted supply of consistent quality products. EDI strives to build operational resilience and maintain business continuity to assure that we can deliver critical raw materials even during market disruptions.

Supply Chain Management

Like Axius Water’s other operating companies, EDI took steps to strengthen oversight of labor, human rights, environmental, and diversity issues with their respective supply chains in 2021, with ATAC leading the way. We took steps to strengthen oversight of labor, human rights, environmental, and diversity issues with our respective supply chains in 2021.

Risk Management

At both the platform and operating company levels, Axius Water’s senior leaders take various actions to identify, assess, and manage ESG and other risks and opportunities. For example, in 2021, Axius recognized a risk management vulnerability and identified the need to more clearly articulate the scope and limits of authority delegated by Axius across the day-to-day operations of their companies. In response, in early 2020, Axius developed and adopted a Delegation of Authority policy covering commercial transactions, capital expenditures, employment matters, banking/treasury/investment matters, contributions and changes to the corporate structure, legal entities, and mergers and acquisitions.

Serving Customers

We draw on decades of experience to create economical, effective, and sustainable solutions for clean water, and our customers define success using many terms, such as SOTE, power, space, NPV, Total N, P, BOD, and TSS. These terms may be rather technical, but what our customers really want is a positive outcome, not a product. Our highly experienced professionals have been offering deep application knowledge backed by unique services and technologies to assist our clients in providing cleaner, healthier water in communities around the world for 47 years. We design and implement innovative, cost-effective, sustainable solutions that help clients maintain compliance of the contaminants and nutrients that regulators are targeting today and into the future. Our ability to solve customer problems is evidenced by the number of our staff members who previously worked for one of our customers and were so impressed with our service level that they chose to join our team and provide that service level to other customers.

Building Local Economies

EDI has deep roots in its local and regional community. We contribute to vibrant economies by providing rewarding careers, depending on local suppliers, and contributing to the expansion of U.S. exports. EDI has received both the Missouri Small Business Exporter of the Year Award and the U.S. Department of Commerce President’s ‘E’ Award for Excellence. Also known as the E-Star Award, this recognition is the highest recognition any U.S. entity can receive for making a significant contribution to the expansion of U.S. exports and has only been granted to 300 companies since its inception. Read more about how EDI continues to serve their community and country.

Applications Knowledge

Axius professionals offer highly specialized technical expertise to help plant engineers and operators use our products and achieve their effluent performance objectives. Collaborating as a united team, our professionals can offer a portfolio of proprietary technologies for cleaner water so that our customers can confidently meet and exceed their treatment needs. Through its online Knowledge Center, EDI engineers and industry leaders share their deep knowledge by offering technical bulletins; case studies; and information on the latest technologies, operator tips, and water industry developments. Find these resources and more.

Research-Based Solutions

In addition to conducting disciplined Research and Development and extensive analysis of customer-specific needs, we can draw on years of data from dozens of full-scale installations that have been meeting rigorous regulations and recognized academic authorities and regulatory agencies. In a field in which experience matters, EDI’s people have been solving aeration challenges for 47 years.

Innovating for a Better Tomorrow

Axius Water’s operating companies offer proprietary, eco-friendly treatment products and services that can replace outdated methods with current best practices and utilize information technology to enhance and remotely control process management.

“At EDI, we value the voice of the customer and look beyond what standard “commodity” systems can offer. We have almost 50 years of aeration innovation and have always placed the highest regard on value for our customers while simultaneously recognizing our corporate mission: being good stewards of the environment.”–Patrick Ely, Regional Sales Manager, EDI Employee since 1988

Water Infrastructure Investments

In response to prolonged underinvestment in water infrastructure in the United States, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law enacted in 2022 delivers more than $50 billion to the EPA to improve U.S. drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater infrastructure. Axius companies are advising and assisting customers on how they can best access and utilize funding from the single largest investment in water that the U.S. federal government has ever made. Axius operating companies possess innovative water treatment technology that can help customers achieve aggressive clean water goals and build future-focused solutions for the 21st century. As U.S.-based manufacturers, both EDI and Nexom produce clean water technologies that are eligible for projects funded under the Build America, Buy America Act, which is part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Find out which EDI product is the best fit for your BABA project.

EDI has provided aeration products to more than 450 wastewater treatment plants in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, serving well over 15 million people. One of its largest customers is the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission (WSSC), which EOSi also serves. Established in 1918, WSSC is one of the largest water and wastewater utilities in the nation, serving 1.9 million residents over an area of nearly 1,000 square miles in Prince George’s and Montgomery counties. Recently, EDI replaced outdated equipment in the WSSC’s Piscataway Water Resource Recovery Plant, which could no longer achieve regulatory limits…

Learn more about EDI`s efforts in restoring the Chesapeake Bay and other large watersheds...