Since 1997, the WBCSD has managed to raise the profile of water on the corporate agenda and has increasingly been recognized as the leading business voice on water.

The overall mission of the project is to provide a cross-sectoral collective business voice which addresses sustainable water management and key policy initiatives. It will more specifically focus on proactively addressing companies’ management response and stakeholder expectations regarding water use and discharges, and enhance stakeholder recognition of global companies as effective water management solution providers via goods, services and technologies.

Some 29 companies from 12 industrial sectors have joined together in the leadership group of the water project, believing in its vision and objectives and recognizing the need to work together to achieve them.

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There is an intrinsic link between the challenge we face to ensure water security and other global issues, most notably climate change and the need to sustainably manage the world’s rapidly growing demand for energy and food.

Managing and balancing supply and demand requires a range of policy and technological solutions. A high priority must be attached both to research and to facilitating deployment of existing and emergent technologies. Business can make a major contribution by providing practical solutions.

The WBCSD Water Project is currently working on the topic, with the objective of identifying long term insights for short term responses to the water, energy and food/fiber/feed nexus. Using a multi stakeholder process, the pathway aims more specifically to:

• Understand, document and model the water, energy, food/fiber/feed linkages at global, regional and country levels;
• Develop and communicate public policy recommendations to support business driven innovative (technology) solutions.

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Business has a lot to contribute in improving access to water and sanitation. It has first a capacity to reach large markets and to scale up initiatives. Business is also an innovation provider and can provide simple and affordable technical solutions. It can also contribute through its financing capacity.

Building on the work that it has done in 2008 during the UN International Year of Sanitation , the WBCSD has kicked-off in 2011 a new pathway on access to water and sanitation, which objective is to increase and enhance the effectiveness of business sector’s engagement in the provision of equitable and sustainable access to water and sanitation.

World Water Day 2012

GWI 2012

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A free and easy to use tool for companies and organizations to map their water use and assess risks relative to their global operations and supply chains.

• How many of your sites are in extremely water-scarce areas? Which sites are at greatest risk?
• How much of your total production is generated from your most at risk sites?
• How many of your suppliers are in water-scarce areas? How will that look into the future?
• How many of your employees live in countries that lack access to improved water and sanitation?

This tool will help you answer these questions and more.

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The global business community increasingly recognizes the water challenge, but to respond effectively it needs guidance, tools, standards and schemes to enable change to more sustainable practices. Since 2006, many new initiatives and concepts have emerged to address this need, driven by business leaders in the field, civil society and governments. Most are global with multi-stakeholder representation; but some are also addressing more and more the specificities of water usage for a particular sector. Water risks are also increasingly capturing the attention of the capital markets.

An overall objective now for the WBCSD is to provide collective cross-sectoral business perspectives on the development of tools and standards that will support company efforts to manage water-related risks and mitigate water-related impacts in cooperation with other stakeholders. 

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Major partnerships include:

• AquaFed, The International Federation of Private Water Operators
  AquaFed® is an association set up in 2005 to connect international organizations with private sector providers of water and sanitation services. The Association brings together over 200 water service providers operating in 38 countries. http://www.aquafed.org

• Ceres
  Ceres is a network of investors and environmental organizations working with companies to address sustainability risks such as climate change and water scarcity. WBCSD is collaborating with Ceres to develop a publicly-available framework to help investors understand how water-intensive companies are positioned to manage water-related risks and opportunities. http://www.ceres.org/

• GEMI
  GEMI is a business-led organization dedicated to foster global environmental, health and safety through the sharing of tools and information to help achieve environmental sustainability excellence. GEMI has 25 member companiesrepresenting more than 12 business sectors. GEMI is currently developing a Local Water Tool^TMthat will be connected to WBCSD’s Global Water Tool^©as their purpose and functionality are mutually supportive. http://www.gemi.org    

• IUCN
  IUCN is the world’s oldest and largest global environmental network - a democratic membership union with more than 1,000 government and NGO member organizations, and almost 11,000 volunteer scientists in more than 160 countries. WBCSD and IUCN co-published Water for Business: Initiatives guiding sustainable water management in the private sector in August 2009 (and updated in March 2010). http://www.iucn.org/

• Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI)
  SIWI is a policy institute that seeks sustainable solutions to the world’s escalating water crisis. WBCSD mobilizes business participation in the Stockholm Water Week and cofounded the Stockholm Industry Water Award. http://www.siwi.org

• The Water Footprint Network
  The mission of the Water Footprint Network is to promote the transition towards sustainable, fair and efficient use of fresh water resources worldwide by advancing the concept of the ‘water footprint’.  WBCSD is a founding partner of the network and has provided consolidated business input to the methodology. http://www.waterfootprint.org

• UN Water
  UN-Water was established to promote coherence and coordination in UN System initiatives that are related to UN-Water’s scope of work and contribute to the implementation of the agenda defined by the 2000 Millennium Declaration and the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development.It also includes major non-UN partners, including the WBCSD. http://www.unwater.org