We all take water for granted. Even though water is critical for human life, ecosystems, and as a major process or product input for industry, it's a resource that very few of us think actively about managing. And of all environmental issues, it's the least debatable; when there's no more water in a region, you don't need scientists to tell you.
Companies need to develop strategies for managing this important resource as water stress becomes the norm in many regions of the world. As a starting point, some organizations are now conducting "water footprints" to figure out where in the value chain their businesses are vulnerable.
Doesn't this sound familiar? Haven't we been down this road before with energy and carbon emissions? It's very easy to describe water as 'the next carbon', and many have, but it's not really the same. Before we lay out some reasons why, let's look at a few recently released reports that highlight how businesses are beginning to approach this challenge.
The Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) has been extremely successful in compelling companies to assess their carbon footprint, develop carbon strategies, set reduction targets, and reduce their emissions. Now the CDP has turned its attention to water as well and recently released the results of its first Water Disclosure (WD) questionnaire (pdf).
Here are a few highlights from the 2010 CDP WD report, which went out to 302 of the world's largest companies. Of the respondents (and 25 unsolicited submissions)...
And the CDP WD is not alone -- several key reports on water risk and opportunity have recently been released.
The bottom-line conclusions from all of these reports are in general these:
Ok, so back to water and carbon. In the sense that businesses need to consider the risks and opportunities inherent in managing natural resource pressures, they represent similar challenges. But we see a few additional, fundamental differences between the two:
Given these significant differences, it would be tempting to say that companies need to develop a stand-alone strategy for water. But instead we recommend integrating water strategy into energy, carbon, and other resource strategies, all while navigating the differences between them.
The investors behind CDP understand the business imperative to managing water well, as do some of the companies with the most to gain in solving the problem. (Note: In part 2 of this post next week, we'll look at some companies both reducing water risk and also generating new business opportunities by helping others manage this precious resource.)
How aware is your organization of its own risks and opportunities? Now is the perfect time to answer this question. It's not too late.
This post is co-authored by Will Sarni, a a director with Deloitte Consulting LLP. He leads Enterprise Water Strategy for Deloitte's Sustainability Services. He is an internationally recognized thought leader on sustainability and is the author of the upcoming book, Corporate Water Strategies (Earthscan).
Cross posted at Harvard Business Online.
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Rev. Fletcher Harper: God is My Rock: How the Earth Reveals the Divine
http://theresilientearth.com/?q=content/water-not-new-oil
everyone knows water is scarce in the SW USA yet NRDC, who produced a HUGE "water scarcity" paper last year still push super hard for total aquifer collapse on publicly-owned healthy ecosystems to ensure that Chevon, BP and Goldman Sachs can monopolize our sunshine, while the rest of us bake and sprawl and over-pay for these mercenaries to kill our land while INCREASING GHG EMISSIONS.
so which is it? do we care about jobs, property values, climate change, water scarcity, democracy, the economy, threatened species, budget deficits, and open spaces or do we care about making sure Chevron, BP, and Goldman Sachs get trillions more taxpayer and ratepayer dollars by monopolizing more of our resources with no upside? the former would mean we would immediately implement a german-style feed in tariff supporting point of use clean power production owned by US. the latter? exactly what we are doing now. it's one or the other and we are on the WRONG track in this country.
This is hysteria. A trillions of gallons? The power is also NOT the same as rooftop PV, especially if you look at the best-in-class design like the Ausra plant w/storage.
I say before worrying about the water quality, let's have a report on the government quality. Seriously, let's see those financials, and get all the investors out of the 'water'.
I think some people are nothing less than a bunch of control freaks, and if you can shut the water valve off on the public, and then squeeze em for money, well, that's kind of like a racket, or something. What kind of salaries do all these people pull down, again? I want to see THAT report.
In some Scandinavian countries, the natural resources are used for the benefit of the population. Norway, for instance, has absolutely no federal debt or deficit, and has a large reserve fund set up for future needs. (Well before oil was discovered in the North Sea, Norway had universal health care and free higher education for those who were qualified.) In America, who are the natural resources used for? International corporations control the petroleum, and much of the fresh water is tied up in long term contracts, for the benefit of large farming interests. Our so-called free market capitalism is actually an excuse to enable corporations to dictate to us how our resources and our wealth are used, by controlling the communication media, and through them, the government.