Introduction

IT IS AMAZING TO CONSIDER the speed with which water risk has percolated to top the business list of concern. Today, the World Economic Forum ranks the freshwater supply crisis as the number three risk affecting the global economy, but already some companies are feeling the pressure closer to home. In April 2014, McDonald's launched their 2012–2013 Sustainability Report to an internal McDonald's Energy Summit. Ken Koziol, Executive Vice President and Global Chief Restaurant Officer, took questions from the assembled audience. 'What is McDonald's water strategy?' was the first question.

David Grant, Sustainable Development Project Manager at SABMiller has a similar story. 'We were used to taking questions from SRI investors [Socially Responsible Investors], but we are now suddenly being asked by institutional investors, what are you doing about water?' After many years of companies telling us that no shareholder, investor or CEO has ever asked a question about water, things are changing. These remarks from SABMiller and McDonald's are just two examples of what numerous other companies are telling us.

Those companies already underway with strategies to manage water are finding themselves at an advantage. McDonald's, for example, estimated its corporate supply chain water footprint, looked at water risk for its restaurants, and used these findings in determining the company's sourcing priorities. McDonald's will soon be releasing their new water strategy. SABMiller has led on water for many years after having identified water as a long-term strategic risk. The message is clear: what companies are doing on water has become a top priority for their stakeholders and increasingly, their shareholders. It is certainly time for business leaders to consider water in ways that they haven't before.

Freshwater supplies and their management stand out as one of the more formidable challenges facing humanity over the coming decades. In many parts of the world, water resources are stressed, and not only from a scarcity and pollution perspective. Fundamental issues relate to the governance and management of water, including investment, equity, ecological damage, loss of biodiversity and failed delivery of basic human services – the list goes on. But there are also plenty of examples where progress has been made and challenges have been successfully dealt with.

This book lays out how water challenges relate to business sustainability. It then proposes a strategic approach to water that will help you not only to understand this resource better but also to plan your own improvements, mitigate your risks and enhance the ways in which water is used and managed inside and outside your factory walls.

Some companies are already quite advanced in addressing water risks, while other are just getting started. What bears thinking through in depth are the ways that communities and companies share a complex 'root system' that feeds sustainable growth. If this book spurs a few more people to ask a new set of questions about water and to devise strateg