Managing Water Use

As leading organisations and governments recognise the challenges of water stress, security of supply and the increasing cost of fresh water, they are searching for ways of minimising the risk inside their regions and operations.

In some countries where water stress is already evident, regulation around water useage is coming into force to limit fresh water usage, shift some primary users from blue to grey water and increase water overall recyling. Emerging design standards are seeking to move government and corporate facilities towards water neutral status and so preserve precious resources. Although Singapore and Australia have been leading the way in this, as other nations including Spain, the US, UK, UAE and Taiwan recognise the future challenges they too are adopting similar strategies preserve supplies and limit use.

In several major areas such as the chemicals, food and FMCG sectors, some companies have been making similar moves to minimise water waste in many of their production processes and so reduce exposure to internal supply constraints and impacts.

The Dow Chemical Company uses water in its industrial processes and also makes products that distribute and treat water. Since 1995, the company has reduced the amount of wastewater produced per pound of product by 35 percent. It has also reduced its freshwater intake by more than 55 billion gallons per year.

Since introducing systematic measurement of its water use in 1995, Unilever has reduced its direct water consumption per ton of production by 62 percent. In 2007, Unilever reduced total water consumption in its operations worldwide by 4.9 million cubic meters and the volume of water per ton of production by 7.5 percent, exceeding its target of 4.7 percent.

A number of Wall Street firms are turning attention to the risks and opportunities posed by global water scarcity: Citi, JPMorgan, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley all issued water-focused research reports in 2008.