HIDDEN WATER

By Chris Hedemann Reprint | | Print |

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LONDON, Dec 9 2010 (IPS) - “Future generations, I am certain, will think of us and bless us for our farseeing patriotism, and it will be said of us, as Isaiah said of old, ‘they made a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert’” (Premier John Forrest, 1903).[1]

The opening of the Kalgoorie Goldfields water pipeline in Western Australia in 1903 was a cause to celebrate. This 557 kilometres long engineering triumph supplied water from dammed rivers and catchments around Perth to the mining industry and surrounding settlements via state-of-the-art infrastructure. It is almost possible to understand Premier ForrestÂ’s poetic faith in the ability of engineering and industry to make rivers in the Australian desert. The same faith in manÂ’s ability to shape the pathways of water led engineers like Sir Arthur Cotton to oversee projects in modern India and Pakistan that in 1947 left a legacy of 100,000 kilometres of canals intended to channel and divert water for irrigation.

Now, 40,000 hectares of salt-encrusted farmland are abandoned each year in Pakistan. Now, the Murray River in Australia struggles to reach the sea.[2] Now, we realise the destructive naivety of those earlier proponents of industry. What has allowed this change in perception is the entering of water into the social consciousness: an awareness of the fragility and importance of the hydrological systems that support our economies. That shift in consciousness has not gone far enough. Anyone who uses taps and toilets can relate to this.

The way that we use water is heavily influenced by the very fittings and institutions that supply it. Elizabeth Shove, a prominent British sociologist, proposes that objects (like taps and fittings), systems (like water utilities or governments) and usersÂ’ habits co-evolve.[3] The pure ease and convenience of using a tap, the efficiency of our local water utility in ensuring quality and security of supply create the illusion that water is endless. These objects and systems conspire to make the difficulties and costs in providing water (and taking it away again) invisible. The result is that we use more. And who can blame us? Only when the tap stops flowing, when the water runs brown, when the toilet clogs, does water enter into our consciousness.

Corporations are not unlike people in this respect. Awareness of local water resources and water-use in the supply chain is still nascent in some of the worldÂ’s largest corporations. However, as water stress becomes more prominent and businesses must compete with other users of local water resources, water is beginning to enter into the corporate consciousness. In the next two decades, the 2030 Water Resources Group forecasts that local water supply will only meet 75 percent of demand in China and only 50 percent of demand in India.[4] This will place water-intensive companies such as Intel Corp.Â’s China unit and Coca-Cola Co.Â’s bottling plants in direct competition with the already struggling 1.6 billion people who rely on farming to survive in these regions.

The ‘newness’ of this field to some companies, and the lack of good quality data on how companies are managing water inspired the creation of the Carbon Disclosure Project’s newest program: CDP Water Disclosure. This year the CDP Water Disclosure questionnaire, backed by 137 investors representing 16 trillion dollars in assets, asked 302 of the world’s largest companies to report on water governance, water risks and opportunities and water accounting. Those companies were selected from the Global 500 because they belonged to sectors that are either water-intensive or are exposed to water risk in their supply chains. A strong 50 percent response rate to the questionnaire in its first year indicates that water is at least on the corporate agenda.

The diversity of results, however, indicates how differently companies are dealing with water. For example, 100 percent of companies belonging to the chemicals sector responded to the questionnaire; and of the food, beverage and tobacco respondents, all had set specific targets for water performance. Other sectors have a lot of ground to make up. Only 29 percent of the oil and gas sector responded, and only one of those respondents had set a specific water-related target or goal.

Virtual water is the water used to create a product, and can be unexpectedly high. A cotton t-shirt, for example, represents 2700 litres of virtual water used to grow the cotton and manufacture the final product.[5] The virtual water tied up in supply chains is often just as significant as direct usage of water resources and can provide the means for water-scarce regions to meet their needs via importing rather than producing water-intensive goods. This can be observed in the Middle East, into which “more water ‘flowsÂ’… each year as ‘virtual waterÂ’ than flows down the Nile into Egypt for agriculture”.[6] Yet over half of the respondents from the retail and consumer goods sector could not identify how much of their stockroom is sourced from water-stressed regions. If the way in which we use water directly is hidden, then water tied up in the supply chain of goods that we produce and consume is truly invisible.

Despite the mixed results, there are also great successes being reported by industry leaders in water management. Amongst these stars are: Anglo-Platinum, which reduced potable water use by 11 percent in 2009; Colgate-Palmolive, which reduced absolute water use by 29.8 percent between 2002 and 2009; and Ford Motor Co., which has reduced water use by 62.4 percent since 2000. PG&E is pioneering a Green Supply Chain Initiative, while General Electric is making strides in its use of high-tech water metering systems. Facing water quality issues, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing is overcoming growing water quality issues by their judicious management of water recycling and purification techniques.

It is this capacity for water to enter the corporate and social consciousness and the ability of companies to show true leadership in water management that I believe will prevent future generations from looking back at us in the same way that we look at the attempts of John Forrest and Sir Arthur Cotton to make rivers in the desert. (1) Quoted in Sofoulis, Z. (2005) ‘Big Water, Everyday Water: A Sociotechnical Perspective’. Continuum. 19:4, 445-463 (2) Pearce, F. (2006) When the Rivers Run Dry, Eden Project Books, London. (3) Shove, E. (2003) Comfort, Cleanliness and Convenience: The Social Organization of Normality, Berg, Oxford. (4) 2030 Water Resources Group (2009) Charting our Water Future: Economic frameworks to inform decision-making. (5) Water Footprint Network 2010 Water Footprint Product Gallery. Accessed online: { http://www.waterfootprint.org/?page=files/productgallery&product=cotton } 05 December 2010. (6) Allan, J A (2010) The Middle East Water Question: Hydropolitics and the Global Economy, I B Tauris, London.

(*) Chris Hedemann is Account Manager CDP Water Disclosure ( https://www.cdproject.net/en-US/Programmes/Pages/cdp-water-disclosure.aspx )

This column is part of a series of opinion articles and interviews about corporate social and environmental responsibility, supported by Anheuser-Busch InBev