Meet Our Staff: Giuliana Moreira

Giuliana’s interest in water issues began in early childhood. “My best childhood memories are of my travels to the beach in Santa Vitória do Palmar, my mother’s hometown, where I spent summer vacations,” she recalls. “I wondered why we had to travel so far from my hometown to swim in the ocean. I later learned that the beach near my home was too polluted for swimming — sewage was dumped directly into the lagoon without treatment, and it still is to this day. Where does that leave people who can’t travel to cleaner beaches?”

Giuliana became increasingly concerned about sanitation issues. She explains, “I realized early in my life that even though access to water is a basic human right, in reality it is not accessible to everyone. This has serious impacts on health and social development, especially for people who are socially disadvantaged.”

After high school, Giuliana decided to dedicate her studies to the area of environmental sciences, focusing on sanitation issues to make water access a reality in her city and many others in Brazil. She cites a startling statistic: “In Brazil, it’s estimated that 35 million citizens don’t have access to safe water, and 100 million don’t have access to adequate sanitation.” The first step was to pursue a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Sanitation, which she completed at the Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology in Brazil while interning at a treatment plant in her hometown.

She then went on to earn a master’s degree in Water Resources and Environmental Sanitation from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. In addition to problems related to poor water quality, Giuliana was interested in exploring extreme events, which also affect the availability of water. Her master’s degree studies focused on the issue of flooding, a problem common in Southern Brazil. She explains that water issues vary throughout the country: “In recent years, we’ve had flooding in the south and severe periods of water scarcity in the southeast.”

After graduating, Giuliana traveled to Italy to work at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) on a project focused on expanding the safe use of wastewater in agriculture and agroforestry. “While working at FAO, I was struck with the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its power of transforming our world,” she says. “I realized the key role companies can play in achieving a more sustainable world through this universal agenda.”

Giuliana carried this lesson into her work at the Pacific Institute. At the Institute, she conducts research and analysis on water stewardship issues in Brazil and supports the United Nations Global Compact’s CEO Water Mandate, an initiative that mobilizes business leaders around the world on water stewardship issues. The Pacific Institute is a co-secretariat of the CEO Water Mandate. Giuliana also supports the WASH4Work initiative, a project of the CEO Water Mandate and other partners that supports business action to address water, sanitation, and hygiene issues.

In her spare time, Giuliana takes singing classes and is learning to play the piano. She also likes to go to the gym. “I also love the beach,” she says, “So I go there whenever I can during the summer.”

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