How a Company Can Understand and Reduce Water Consumption

Smart companies that take part in minding sustainability know what it takes to reduce carbon emissions. The smarter companies, however, know better as they take comprehensive steps in ensuring sustainability, including finding ways to reduce water consumption. These companies understand that it is essential to set its baseline, be able to inventory its water sources and document its water footprint. The forward thinking companies always know the risks and have a plan that defines the course of action on water management.

The greenhouse gas protocol tells us that there are different categories of carbon emissions. It is already well understood that carbon emissions can be produced directly and indirectly either in the upstream or downstream in any production facility. We can refer to this analogy when trying to reduce water consumption, by ensuring that we understand how water can be used in the supply chain and in disposal efforts.

There are three steps which smart companies can take to reduce water consumption, which helps organizations protect its position in the market because of their ability to assess risks related to the sustainability of the entire operations. Firstly, the company needs to assess its baseline, take stock of its water inventory and identify its footprint. Secondly, it must fully understand its risk exposure and thirdly it must design and implement a plan.

In doing water footprint inventory, the ultimate goal is to understand how water resources may be used to arrive at efficient ways of allocating such in the production of goods and services. This could be in the "work in progress" production phase or during transportation and the company needs to take responsibility for the fact that this happens. While it may well be beyond the borders of the organization, the fact is that the company's demand for the supplier's product is the cause of this water usage.

Fundamentally, in the production stage, water used should be from a renewable source, where at all possible. Water is likely to be as volatile a political subject as carbon emissions in the future. We need to consider how stakeholders and consumers become increasingly aware that water is taken from common resources which could get depleted or contaminated.

Water can become a very critical issue for any industry or business. Questions will govern its efficient use, but it can also be a potentially inflammatory issue after the fact as well. There should be efforts done to recycle water as discharge and runoff from water use can become one of the biggest pollution concerns.

For any related risks attributed to water use and resources, any company that understands such issues well would find the urgency to take action to reduce water consumption when possible. So many factors can combine to place a premium on water. For instance, local ground and weather conditions which cause temporary drought. Consider how market conditions could cause energy fluctuations and a corresponding demand for water generated power and so on.

Water related risks can change significantly depending on the geographical location of a company facility. Therefore, for distributed organizations, an assessment of such risks must take in to account regional disparities, local political positions and attitudes.

The corporate approach must be modified to reduce water consumption from a global perspective. Essentially, we have not increased our water efficiency over the last couple of decades, choosing to place most emphasis on energy efficiency and carbon emissions. Sustainability is multifaceted and cannot be polarized.

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