2020-02-01_strategy+business

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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