Virginia Gardiner

CEO and founder - Loowatt

Virginia Gardiner is the CEO and founder of Loowatt, a London-based company that has pioneered a revolutionary waterless toilet system. Her work is centred on “circular economy sanitation”—turning human waste into valuable commodities like biogas and fertilizer. After graduating from Stanford, she worked as a writer and editor for Dwell, Metropolis and The New York Times. Sometimes assigned to cover kitchen and bath trade shows, she became frustrated by the lack of innovation in toilet technology. She viewed the practice of using clean drinking water to flush away waste as fundamentally unethical and unsustainable. While pursuing a dual master’s degree in Industrial Design Engineering at the Royal College of Art and Imperial College she developed a prototype for a waterless toilet that would meet the standards of a London apartment dweller, while turning waste into a commodity. This project evolved into Loowatt Ltd.’s waterless toilet system, now being deployed in Madagascar, South Africa, and the UK. Virginia is a vocal advocate for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, particularly Goal 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation). She describes herself as being driven by “creative anger” to develop solutions that can change a wasteful status quo.