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March 4, 2025 · By Mahroo Shahbaz and Stephanie Bertels
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In this blog, we share insights from our series of Getting Started Guides that address issues related to water. These three guides form part of a larger series of issue-based Getting Started Guides that aim to support the development of an embedded sustainability strategy.
Anchored in research, each guide tackles a specific sustainability sub-issue to help you (and others in your business) build a foundational understanding and understand the work ahead. We explain each sub-issue along with relevant trends, system thresholds, key concepts, actors, and pair that with resources to help you along the journey. We also outline common corporate goals and internal interim targets to show how companies are working on addressing the impacts of their operational and value chain activities.
Our set of Getting Started Guides on water includes three guides, covering the sub-issues of:
Water stewardship
Water quantity
Water quality
Water is essential to wellbeing and has widespread cultural importance. That’s why the UN recognises the fundamental right to access “sufficient, safe, acceptable, physically accessible, and affordable water” for all.
And yet, around the world, water-related risks and crises are growing, shaped by intertwined challenges of water scarcity, extreme weather events such as floods and droughts, declining water quality, and significant losses of water-related ecosystems.
Currently, 4 billion people live under conditions of severe water scarcity at least one month of each year and half a billion people experience it year-round. And at current rates of consumption, this is only expected to worsen. Half of the world’s population could be living in areas experiencing water scarcity as soon as 2025, and 700 million people are projected to be displaced due to water unavailability by 2030. Increasing urbanisation, water demand, insufficient sewage treatment, agricultural and industrial activities, and climate change impacts are also worsening water quality around the world. As of 2024, UNEP estimates that “only 56% of all monitored water bodies worldwide were classified as having good ambient water quality”.
Human activities are a leading cause for water stress and diminishing water quality. Agriculture alone uses nearly 70% of the world’s available freshwater, followed by industry at nearly 20% - and the currently prevailing methods of water management are wasteful and unsustainable, putting our already scarce resources at greater risk.
Companies need to become responsible water stewards to ensure that water systems can remain resilient and continue to support the needs of everyone. This will mean understanding your organisation’s water risks, use, and impacts, embedding stewardship principles at the core of your water strategy, understanding when to prioritise water management and when to invest in water stewardship where you operate, and taking action on water quantity and quantity issues throughout your operations and value chains.
Our forthcoming Getting Started Guides on Water help to explain key concepts and outline the work required. To give you a sense of what they cover, we share some insights from the three guides below.
Water Stewardship: A Getting Started Guide provides insights on our shared water challenges and defines key terms and concepts that will be crucial to building strong water strategies. It provides guidance on understanding both water management and water stewardship approaches, how to determine where each approach may fit into your broader water strategy, and the importance of embedding your strategy within local contexts. The work in this guide underpins much of the issue-specific work outlined in Water Quantity: A Getting Started Guide and Water Quality: A Getting Started Guide.
Common long-term goals include collaborating for positive change in prioritised catchments and working within an informed understanding of local limits and contexts to achieve fair use of water. These are often accompanied by mid-term commitments to contribute to locally led water resiliency projects, engaging in advocacy for water policy issues, collaborating with local governments and institutions for effective and equitable water resource planning and management, and more.
Taking action on water stewardship begins in year one with understanding rights related to water and key concepts, defining the physical scope of water stewardship efforts, and gathering water-related data for sites and catchments to understand shared water challenges. Year two involves understanding water-related risks and opportunities, identifying priority site(s) and catchment(s) where your company needs to focus its efforts, and identifying best practice in water stewardship for your industry and your prioritised catchment(s). Year three includes developing a position statement to align your organisation, setting targets, and developing a water stewardship strategy. Lastly, year four covers engaging in water stewardship within your value chain and collective action for resilient water systems.
Water Quantity: A Getting Started Guide addresses current trends in water scarcity and stress, highlighting the urgent need for action. It provides guidance on understanding water use, risks, and impacts and supports your organisation as it begins or revisits a strategy addressing water usage and scarcity.
Common long-term goals include reducing water use impacts in water-stressed catchments. This goal is frequently paired with mid-term goals to safely and responsibly replenish water in catchments equivalent to water used in operations and products, implement water efficiency solutions and technologies, improve water reuse and recycling, and more.
Taking action on water quantity begins in year one with understanding local water issues, identifying priority catchments for action, and gathering data to establish baselines. This is followed by assessing water risks, determining what a sustainable level of water use looks like for your company based on the local catchment context, and identifying best practices to achieve water balance. In year three, underpinned by previous learnings, you will develop an action plan on water quantity for your operations and undertake the work required to understand indirect water usage to build the foundation needed to engage your value chain. Once this is in place, year four can include extending your learnings into your value chain and collaborating for system-wide changes.
Water Quality: A Getting Started Guide explores the interlinkages between water quality and vital environmental and social systems and the ways water quality can be negatively impacted by insufficient sewage treatment, agricultural run-off, industrial pollutants and other factors. It provides guidance on understanding key water quality issues, how your operations and value chains may be contributing to eroding water quality, the cascading impacts this may have on business and society, and how to develop a water quality strategy that contributes to the resilience of water systems.
Common long-term goals include zero impact on water quality and reducing the levels of nutrients (and/or other water pollutants and quality indicators) in local catchments. Mid-term goals include aiming to safely treat 100% of wastewater, eliminating the release of hazardous chemicals and materials into water, addressing the accumulation of materials and chemicals in water through end-of-life solutions, and more.
Taking action on water quality begins in year one by understanding key issues and how your industry contributes to priority water pollutants identified for the catchment. This is followed by gathering relevant site and catchment level water quality data to establish baselines. In year two, leverage this understanding and data to understand your water quality-related risks and your water quality impacts, identify best practice, and pinpoint key areas of improvement for your organisation. Year three covers setting targets and developing an action plan that will guide your organisation’s work on water quality. In year four, begin to extend your learnings into your value chain to tackle water quality issues and support system-wide changes through collaboration and engagement.
This was just a brief summary of the more detailed guidance provided by the Getting Started Guides on Water.
Image by tammykayphoto on Shutterstock.