October 22, 2026
This award belongs to many people whom we cannot all mention by name here.
Aurin builds on years of research at Eawag on where the VUNA process was developed, and on the work of the Vuna-Teams that turned this into a technology. Many thanks to Kai Udert, Bastian Etter, and everyone who was part of this community, tested the technology, and believed in it – long before urine recycling made headlines. Our thanks also go to the Federal Office for Agriculture BLW, which officially approved Aurin for the market almost ten years ago! We also thank the Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN) and the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI), which has supported the development of the technology through various projects.
Aurin is more than just a product. It demonstrates that centralized wastewater treatment is not the only option and that, under certain circumstances, it makes more sense to treat urine directly at the source. This allows nutrients to be recovered as fertilizer and saves water on-site.
Our treatment facilities can be visited in Geneva, Freiburg, Zurich, and Paris. In Paris, we operate facilities at the European Space Agency – ESA; another facility will soon be built in the Saint-Vincent-de-Paul district in cooperation with SPL Paris and Métropole aménagement. Many thanks to @salvaglica for telling this story, and to TIME for this award.
👉 Our entry
👉 The complete list
P2Green · LAUFEN Bathrooms · Swiss Food & Nutrition Valley · Solar Impulse Foundation · Rich Earth Institute · VaLoo · NetSan eV. · RAE – Réseau de l'Assainissement Ecologique · Blue Lion · MELiSSA Foundation · Antoine Walter · Arnaud Runge · Brigitte Lamaze