It seems that a company’s risk management department is busier than ever, as companies worldwide seek to reposition themselves in an increasingly aware environmental atmosphere. Individuals are far more educated about constrained living and expect the companies that they do business with to take a similar approach. It’s also difficult to keep up with a raft of new regulations and the potential for increasingly intrusive legislation.
Risk analysts sometimes find it difficult to advise their corporate board rooms about sustainable water management, as it is inherently difficult to understand the depth and breadth of the problem. We use water in the production of almost everything and over the decades we have tended to look at it as a free resource, scarcely valuing real worth.
There are two issues associated with sustainable water management. Population growth is the most significant, especially when you consider that the world’s population will top 9 billion people by 2050, a banner year when global sustainability efforts are focused. Population growth like this will put huge demands on freshwater availability. On the other hand, global warming has been exacerbated by our unsustainable energy use and approach to living and associated temperature change will mean that the amount of water naturally distributed will be reduced.
There are so many factors to bear in mind when creating a sustainable water management plan. Perhaps the most perplexing is the fact that total elimination of water use is often worse than water inefficiency. Sustainable water management likely points to efficiency but not elimination, as often excessive energy use can be associated with total elimination, while this can also lead to solid waste generation and the problems associated there.
Western societies look with some trepidation at the rise of countries like China, India and other emerging economies. While the world’s population is inexorably growing, populations in these developing countries are also finding a higher standard of living, which in itself will rapidly accelerate demand for sustainable water management by the companies within those countries.
Companies must think in global terms when they create a sustainable water management policy and really understand the pressure points within the product lifecycle. Reliance on supply chain organizations could be an issue, as these companies could be located within a completely different resource management environment. Levels of education rarely seen before will be called for as complex sustainability matters impact business strategy decisions.
Corporate sustainability reporting is yet to reach the mainstream. A majority of companies do not include such reports within their public detail, but when they do they largely refer to energy use and carbon emissions. A sustainable water management plan is simply not on the radar for some companies, far less the subject of a report to stakeholders.
As executives spend many a late evening trying to develop a sustainable water management plan, many are seeking software solutions that will allow them to put together all their efforts. They need to see how one particular sustainability initiative may impact, sometimes negatively, another, while allowing them to reveal the big picture and plan accordingly.
Daniel Stouffer has much more information about your sustainable water management and how a visit to www.verisae.com will aid you.
categories: carbon emissions,environmental damage,climate change,climate,environment
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