2020-02-01_strategy+business

(Joyce) #1
Despite some companies taking the lead, there is a long way to go. Unlike
wider climate change risk, which now gets a lot of attention from both investors
and companies, water-related practices are not well understood or reported. Last
year, almost 7,000 companies disclosed their climate change–related information,
mainly greenhouse gas emissions,
to the international nonprofit CDP
(formerly known as the Carbon
Disclosure Project). In contrast, just
2,114 companies disclosed data about
their water management.
Companies need to explain how
they are accelerating their progress
toward achieving water sustainability
for their own financial stability and reputation, and for the greater good of
societies. It should no longer be optional. Governments and civil societies are
pushing companies toward water audits, demanding they meet benchmarks for
water use, and asking that companies disclose their water footprint.

The spillover effects
These new requirements are coming as policymakers rethink economic models
in the face of economic slowdown and environmental stress. For example, there
is momentum behind new trade and investment policies designed to transition
economies to a low-carbon path while creating new jobs.
Achieving and maintaining a higher level of water security could also have
significant spillover effects. Within India, water security has the potential to
strengthen the struggling farm economy, boost rural incomes, and create jobs
at a time of high unemployment. On-the-ground interventions such as water
harvesting require manual labor, and technological innovations harness the skills
of entrepreneurs, scientists, and engineers. And what’s more, all of these solutions
need established businesses to fund and implement them.
Successes in India, with its unparalleled scale of crisis, could offer lessons to a
world that risks missing number 6 of the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals:
ensuring safe water and sanitation for all. And failure to act and make changes

Unlike wider climate
change risk, which now
gets a lot of attention,
water-related practices
are not well understood
or reported.

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