The Growing Challenge of Water Procurement

By Graham Russell

Most sustainability professionals would agree that, in the long run, making adequate supplies of fresh water readily available to the world’s entire population is probably the most difficult resource-related challenge we face, especially in light of the weather uncertainties posed by global climate change. There is an essentially fixed amount of fresh water in the world, and for all practical purposes there are no substitutes for its role in keeping humans and animals alive -- not to mention growing the increasing amounts of food required for a growing global population.

Water is a strategically important issue for both developed and emerging countries. It is estimated that 780 million people around the world lack access to clean water for drinking, cooking and bathing. This results in millions of deaths a year from waterborne diseases, almost all in developing nations, and billions of dollars in healthcare costs.

In the developed world, the challenge is how to make clean water available in adequate quantities in the right place at the right time, a problem that has become known as the water/energy nexus: that intricate relationship between these two critical resources in which each needs the other in enormous quantities. It is estimated that nearly half of the water consumed in the U.S. is dedicated to cooling systems in thermoelectric power plants that produce electricity. In California nearly 20 percent of the state's electricity consumption goes toward water-related uses (purification, storage, transportation). In China, the South/North Diversion Project to bring water from southern rivers to the drier, more industrialized northern regions – a matter of national strategic economic interest – has resulted in one of the world’s largest engineering projects that is likely to cost over $100 billion when completed.

Superimposed on these global and national water challenges is the fact that nearly 70 percent of the world’s population will live in cities by 2050, compared with about 54 percent in 2014. Ensuring adequate supplies of water for both their residents and their industries therefore becomes a strategic competitive advantage issue for city managements. They will have to step up their water stewardship programs in the form of better forward planning to secure adequate supplies, improved maintenance of distribution systems to prevent leakage and main breaks, and pricing and incentive systems to encourage conservation and more efficient usage.

Also on the agenda for cities is the issue of too much water! Given the disruption to water supplies we have seen in recent years from increasingly intense storms and flooding, widely presumed to be related to global climate change, addressing water infrastructure resiliency will also be an increasing challenge for many large urban communities.

In the corporate world, we tend to think of water as a strategic issue for companies like Coca-Cola and Miller Coors, where water is a resource put into their products without which they have no business. Increasingly, however, leading-edge companies are employing innovative water stewardship programs not only to reduce operating costs, but also to enhance the equity value of their corporate brands. For example, water has been a key component of one global auto manufacturing company’s comprehensive sustainability initiative since 2000. By 2015 the company will have reduced the amount of water used across its global manufacturing base to produce each vehicle by 50 percent since 2000 -- saving hundreds of millions of dollars. Most global corporations that use water in large quantities now work closely with the communities in which they operate -- especially in water deficient regions -- to make sure they are addressing local concerns about water supply and wastewater disposal, thereby safeguarding their license to operate and enhancing their image as a good corporate citizen.

Across the globe, water is a vital strategic consideration for organizations ranging from national governments to city managements to diverse types of companies, large and small. At ISSP Conference 2014, these issues and more will be explored by a panel of global water experts moderated by Will Sarni, director and practice leader of enterprise water strategy, sustainability and climate change practice for Deloitte Consulting LLP. Other panelists are Susan Rokosz, senior environmental engineer at Ford Motor Co., and Paul Brown, director of applied research at the Patel College of Global Sustainability at the University of South Florida, and former executive vice president of CDM Smith, a global engineering and construction company.

Graham Russell is a regular writer for Triple Pundit and a member of ISSP’s Board of Directors. ISSP Conference 2014 will be held November 12-14 in Denver. For more information, visit http://www.sustainabilityprofessionals.org/