Where Do Businesses Fall Short When It Comes to Effective Water Management?

According to the findings of a study that was carried out by Ceres, a sustainable business consortium with its headquarters in Boston, the vast majority of businesses are not practising effective water management. This is going to mean that food prices, which are already relatively high, will increase even further in the not too distant future.

Ceres evaluated 37 firms by using data that was readily available to the public, such as corporate financial and sustainability reports, in order to make its assessments. The findings of the evaluations were not encouraging; 31 of the 37 companies scored less than 50 out of 100.

Where Do Businesses Fall Short When It Comes to Effective Water Management?
According to the findings of the report, the majority of businesses do not offer financial incentives to their employees or to the farmers and processors they contract with in order to improve water conservation or reduce water pollution. The majority of them are also not tracking water use outside of their own operations, which is a big error given that their supply chain is responsible for a portion of the major water use.

Kellogg, one of the six firms to score more than 50 (54), is well on its way to meeting its 2015 objective of reducing the amount of water it uses per metric tonne of food production by 15%-20% from 2005 levels. Kellogg was one of the companies that scored more than 50. In addition to this, it has established new objectives for the year 2020, begun a number of projects aimed at water conservation, and devised a strategy to collaborate with farmers on the protection of their watersheds and the more effective use of water and fertilisers.

Other businesses, such as Dean Foods, Molson Coors, Campbell Soup, and Unilever, are also providing financial incentives to their CEOs in exchange for meeting water management objectives. These corporations are among those that are working to improve their water management practises.

Unfortunately, others, who scored between 6 and 10 on the evaluation, are not as open to the conclusions and claim that they are doing their part to conserve water. They scored between 6 and 10. Even while some of them already have certain precautions in place, these are not sufficient, and they will need to take more steps in order to reduce their water consumption and maintain reasonable food pricing.

According to Ceres, one of the steps that the business could do is to engage more closely with their suppliers to collect data, secure water supplies, and promote water conservation. This is one of the measures that the industry should take. In addition to this, it recommends that businesses get involved in the conservation of watersheds and routinely disclose any water-related hazards to their boards of directors so that appropriate preventative measures can be done.

It is necessary to build new standards for reporting and data collecting; these should then be used to make judgments on water use and savings that provide solutions applicable throughout an entire industry.

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