Water stewardship and responsible water usage

The water crises consistently ranking among the top global risks identified by the World Economic Forum (WEF) should be seen as a warning sign to all companies to at least take a peek into their potential exposure to water risk. In fact, it should be defined in the companies act that all directors of companies have a fiduciary responsibility to address the water risks. It may turn out that they are not at risk but this can only be determined if the company truly understands the risks water poses to their business.

In reality, WEF’s global water risk warning is ignored by many companies for a number of reasons. Some of these reasons include; water not being a problem in the past, the cost of water is insignificant in relation to other costs, and lack of understanding and buy-in from executives.

What businesses fail to realise is that water delves far deeper into any organisation than one would imagine. Firstly, all stakeholders are affected differently by water risks:

Shareholders: If a company is unable to operate as a result of water risk, this would result in loss of profits, reputational risk, loss in company value and possible closure. The shareholders, therefore, need to know that their assets are protected.

Directors: If brought to their attention, the directors of a company should have a fiduciary responsibility to ensure that they address any risk (current or future) that a company could face.

Sustainability division: This is a division that traditionally is responsible for “greening” an organisation. It is often found that whilst these divisions have wonderful ideas, they don’t have the full commitment from the necessary stakeholders to implement initiatives that would make a real difference.

Site / Property managers: These managers are tasked with making sure that they keep the cash register ringing. If their operation shuts down, the company loses money. Whilst it is often found that some of these operations implement novel water initiatives, these are often done in isolation (site level) and not measured against the whole organisation's water usage or efficiencies.

The second thing to understand is that water is everywhere in an organisation, whether that be in an office block or commercial building, factory environment or hospitality industry:

• Cooling and heating
• Restrooms
• Kitchens
• Irrigation
• Cleaning
• Laundry
• Production processes
• Auxiliary water areas

The impact of water being turned off at any of these facilities would be catastrophic, leading to possible closure, production losses, discomfort and health hazards.

Lastly, the largest unknown water usage in any organisation is in supply chains. Typically, as part of a water stewardship programme, these are addressed last when the organisation has got a handle on their own water usage. However, should water shortages expand to affect supply chains, these risks would need to be addressed sooner rather than later.

Each one of the above-listed water risks could potentially close down an organisation and this affects all the stakeholders, let alone the indirect collateral damage like customers, staff and suppliers.

Water stewardship programme

The Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS) outlines six steps for a successful water stewardship programme:

The first step is commitment - this is accepting the challenge to use water responsibly, whatever the cost. Without the commitment of all stakeholders it will be difficult to make progress in the following steps. The balance of the steps; gathering, understanding, planning, implementing, evaluating, and communicating all fall into place once there is commitment.

During this process of a company engaging in a structured approach to addressing water risks, it is normally found that all organisations have the ability to use water more efficiently resulting in cost savings.

Aerial view of Cabanas Waterworld and The Sun City Hotel

An organisation doing great things in this area is Sun International. GCX has been working with Sun International on a water stewardship programme that commenced in April of 2015. To date, this has resulted in a full commitment to the programme from the Sun International board that runs until the end of 2020. In the short period that the company has been on the water stewardship programme, it has reduced the water consumption by 2.8% and increased their water recycling by 6.6%. Additional water savings will be achieved as Sun International implements the water stewardship programme at 11 of its South African properties throughout 2017.