IEEM becomes IREM

Ever since water management and environmental protection have existed, the requirements have constantly increased. With the need to utilise water and valuable materials multiple times, innovative and financially sustainable solutions are increasingly being found when liquid and solid resources are treated together. Water technologies in particular are indispensable as key technologies for the recovery (concentration, extraction) of critical but also „merely“ valuable materials. 

Against this background, the Institute for Environmental Engineering and Management (IEEM gGmbH – Institute for Environmental Engineering and Management), has decided in favour of a reform in this direction after three successful decades in water and environmental research at Witten/Herdecke University: From 1 August 2024, all new projects will be processed under the name IREM (Institute for Resource Engineering and Management, Regenerative Economy for Water and Materials). The extended corporate purpose of IREM gGmbH allows us to expand our networks in a targeted manner, with the basis for cooperation being extended beyond the existing research collaborations with universities and companies to include materials management.

All project contracts (i.e. publicly funded research work and scientific consulting for the water industry) will be concluded under the old company IEEM gGmbH by 31 July 2024 – on a solid financial basis and with scientifically interesting and innovative results. Ongoing project developments, new contracts and references will be transferred to the new IREM gGmbH along with the staff and all facilities. The IEEM gGmbH will then be liquidated.

IREM’s application-related research and scientific advice are intended to create solutions that (wherever appropriate) are flanked by other specialist disciplines or partners who can contribute something from a different perspective that IREM alone cannot cover. Conversely, the role of water and materials experts such as IREM is indispensable for research consortia with broad-based expertise, e.g. for climate, socio-economics, ecology, and development policy, as far as practice-oriented management concepts and technology-based solutions are concerned. Similarly, this also applies to the so-called „nexus“ areas of the United Nations‘ sustainability goals, such as the energy industry, food production and agriculture, and healthcare.

In the water and materials sector in particular (as well as in the energy and environmental sector in general), technologies that „still“ work for the time being should not be replaced by technologies that „do not yet work“. It is often avoidable mistakes in detail that jeopardise success overall. Like IEEM to date, IREM will in future also solve the sometimes annoying technical and seemingly „small“ economic problems in order to achieve „big goals“ on the way to a climate and environmentally friendly, regenerative resource economy – always with the claim that it will ultimately pay off ecologically, socially and financially.