Three steps all businesses should take on water management

Businesses could benefit from taking a three-pronged approach to fast-track effective water management strategies, a sustainability expert has said.

Writing in a Corporate Eco Forum blog, Ecolab’s vice president of corporate sustainability, Emilio Tenuta advised companies to first acknowledge the issue and associated risks at both site and organisation level.

“A smart water management strategy starts with understanding the water-related risks facing your business, which could result in business disruption, supply chain interruption, rising costs of operation, and barriers to growth,” he said.

These risks include increased demands on local water supplies, insufficient water quantity or quality, inadequate water infrastructure and changing climate conditions altering historic water availability.

“It is important to understand these risks at the site level, as well as the broader implications for business operations in the surrounding community. If we assess the real and future risks facing us at the site level, enterprise level, and surrounding community, we can begin to see how our operations will affect others in our shared watersheds and vice versa,” Tenuta added.