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In addition to meeting net-zero goals, organizations also need to lower their water footprint to reduce disruption risk and ensure accessible clean water.
FREMONT, CA: Companies all across the world have begun to adjust their operations to achieve their net-zero targets. While these steps to reduce their carbon footprint are important, the environmental challenges of water scarcity and inadequate water management are also important.
Growing water scarcity — defined as people having fewer than 1,000 cubic meters of potable water per year — puts businesses and their supply networks at risk of disruption. As governments strive to protect drinking water for their populations, a lack of accessible clean water is already hurting the viability of industrial activities and rising taxation. According to the United Kingdom, pure water quantities would drop by 50% to 80% by 2050, while Germany's increased water charges impact the region's agricultural businesses' economic sustainability.
Water resources have historically been devalued, contributing to inadequate tracking and control of water usage. Industries and agriculture facilities can raise this statistic to a KPI as necessary as greenhouse gas emissions by implementing current technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), and remote sensing to quantify water consumption across the supply chain. In the agriculture sector, for example, remote sensing and satellite monitoring have been used to help farmers better plan irrigation procedures by providing detailed real-time tracking of their farmed areas to leverage weather conditions and local topography. The knowledge gained could lead to automatic irrigation schedule adjustments to match daily fluctuations in water supply with the crop's water requirements.
Many companies don't control clean water waste and leakage because operating runoffs aren't considered a source of pollution in most nations, and water waste isn't regulated. However, if clean water becomes scarcer, we anticipate this will alter, as it will become inextricably linked to guaranteeing operational safety. This is particularly true in sectors that rely on clean water for their manufacturing operations. Companies may be forced to adjust their production lines utilizing technologies that raise costs or reduce the quality of the items produced in one scenario. More troubling, a lack of clean water will almost certainly result in a rise in resource expenditures, which will have a direct influence on operating costs.
