Sabesp Brand Guidelines: São Paulo’s 1973 Water Merger, Privatised in 2024

A 1973 merger of São Paulo’s state water bodies.

Sabesp — in full the Companhia de Saneamento Básico do Estado de São Paulo — was founded in 1973; English Wikipedia gives the date as 29 June 1973. The company’s investor-relations history says it was formed by merging several state bodies that already supplied water and sewerage: COMASP, SANESP, SAEC, FESB, SBS and SANEVALE. Its corporate profile adds that the first to be folded in were those serving the São Paulo Metropolitan Region, the Baixada Santista coast and the Vale do Ribeira.

Growth came municipality by municipality. In 1974, the company says, Botucatu became the first inland municipality to grant its sanitation services to Sabesp, and the Guaraú water treatment plant, part of the Cantareira System, began operating. Its own timeline then lists the Santos submarine outfall in 1978, the Santa Tereza and Voturuá tunnel reservoir in the Baixada Santista in 1981, the Barueri sewage treatment plant in 1988, and in 1992 the first stage of the Alto Tietê system, meant to close a supply shortfall in the east of the capital. That year, the company adds, it also joined agreements to clean up the Tietê River and restore the Guarapiranga reservoir, and in 2000 it opened the Pinheiros sewage outfall, part of the Projeto Tietê.

Sabesp’s corporate profile says it now supplies water and sewage collection and treatment to 376 municipalities in the state, serving 30.9 million people with water and 28.1 million with sewage collection each day, and describes itself as the largest sanitation company in Brazil. Its shares trade on the B3 Novo Mercado under the code SBSP3 and in New York as American Depositary Receipts under SBS.

From state company to listed utility.

Sabesp’s path to the market was gradual. Its shares were first traded on the São Paulo exchange, then the Bovespa, in 1997, according to the company; English Wikipedia gives 1996. In 2002, the company says, it became the first Brazilian sanitation company to join the B3’s Novo Mercado governance segment, registered with the US Securities and Exchange Commission and listed ADRs on the New York Stock Exchange, leaving the State of São Paulo with 71.5 per cent of the capital. A secondary offering in 2004 brought the state’s holding down to 50.3 per cent.

Named programmes carry much of the company’s public story. Its timeline lists Onda Limpa (“Clean Wave”), launched in 2007 to build sewage treatment plants and submarine outfalls in nine coastal cities, and Córrego Limpo (“Clean Stream”), aimed at the city’s streams and, through them, the Tietê and Pinheiros rivers. In 2008 shareholders approved expansion beyond the company’s original territory and into new kinds of service, and between 2014 and 2017 Sabesp lists works that linked the metropolitan region’s supply systems together. English Wikipedia adds that a 2006 law allowed Sabesp to expand into other Brazilian states and abroad, and that it signed cooperation agreements in Spain, Israel and Costa Rica.

That period also brought scrutiny. English Wikipedia describes criticism of the company’s handling of the 2014 São Paulo water crisis and of leakage in its pipe network. Supply management remains part of its public messaging: in August 2026 Agência Brasil reported that Sabesp had shortened its night-time reduced-pressure period in Greater São Paulo from ten hours to eight, after the dry season had lowered the Cantareira System, which supplies about half of the region’s population.

How water utilities present themselves.

Water utilities sell something nobody sees being made. Their identities therefore lean on a small set of images: blue and green palettes, droplet and wave marks, and reservoirs, treatment works and pipelines photographed from the air. The look is meant to read as calm and dependable, closer to a public service than to a consumer brand, even when the company is investor-owned and listed on a stock exchange.

Much of a utility’s visible design work is practical. Bill explainers, tariff tables, payment-help schemes and outage maps make up a large share of its website, and the tone is plain and procedural. Many companies run several regional or state brands under one parent, so a naming system and a shared set of colours often matter more than any single logo.

Messaging changes with the weather and the regulator. Leak-repair campaigns, drought appeals and hosepipe or watering restrictions appear in dry years; investment programmes, pipe-replacement work and rate cases appear in filings and press releases. Environmental performance reports and sustainability reports set out targets and results in charts and tables, usually in the same restrained palette as the rest of the brand.

The last strand is education. Utilities run school visits, careers programmes, treatment-plant tours and community grants, and they publish material on how water is treated and why pipes need replacing. This guide sets out what can be checked about each company — when it began, who owns it and how it describes itself — and marks clearly what rests only on the company’s own word.

A state share sale in July 2024.

In 2023 Sabesp won its first concession through a competitive tender, in Olímpia, and the same year São Paulo state passed State Law 17.853/2023 authorising the company’s privatisation, according to its timeline. The secondary share offering that followed settled on 22 July 2024, the company says, cutting the state’s stake to 18.0 per cent. Agência Brasil, reporting in March 2026, dated the conclusion to 23 July 2024 and said the state had sold 32 per cent of the shares: 15 per cent went to Equatorial, the only bidder for the role of reference investor, and 17 per cent to individual, corporate and employee buyers. The company says the sale brought forward to 2029 its target of universal sanitation in the areas it serves.

The sale has been challenged in court. In March 2026, Agência Brasil reported, Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court began judging a constitutional challenge in its virtual plenary; the rapporteur voted to uphold the privatisation, but a request by another justice moved the case to the in-person plenary, with a date still to be set at the time of that report. The company has meanwhile kept reorganising: shareholders of EMAE, the Empresa Metropolitana de Águas e Energia, approved the incorporation of their shares into Sabesp on 16 September 2026, ADVFN reported, and Gazeta Mercantil reported that the incorporation was completed on 27 October 2026.

For a design guide, Sabesp shows a utility that tells its story through reservoirs, treatment works and named clean-up programmes. Compare Aguas Andinas, Santiago’s water company, and Veolia, the French water and environmental services group. For this guide we use a deep reservoir blue, a brighter river blue and a leaf green with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Sabesp’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.