Climate change and carbon footprinting are major concerns, but water issues need to be given equal attention by businesses, says ACCA in its discussion paper Water: the next carbon? The report is based on a recent ACCA event on Water Footprinting. Dr Dave Tickner, head of freshwater programmes at WWF UK, who was one of the speakers at the event, says: “Ensuring water security is one of the greatest challenges facing the world in the 21st century. The sustainable supply of water to all users, including businesses, underpins economic growth, poverty reduction, food and energy security and adaptation to the effects of climate change. Wise management of this critical natural resource is therefore in all of our interests. WWF believes that companies, as major users of water, could play a key role in promoting better water management.”Andy Wales, head of sustainability at SAB Miller, who spoke at the event, also contributed to the ACCA paper. The paper summarises the outcomes and discussion points of the event, which include:
- water as a key business risk
- water footprinting methodologies
- public-private partnerships
- corporate water management and how it can be achieved
- mainstream investor interest in water
WWF UK and ACCA have recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding to work together on ACCA’s UK Awards for Sustainability Reporting 2009 research, which will be assessing the standard of UK disclosures on water use and management.Vicky McAllister, sustainability advisor at ACCA says: “We are very pleased to be working with WWF UK on this issue. UK businesses should be addressing and reporting on the importance of water resources and management in their operations as well as upstream and downstream activities, one element of which is calculating the water footprint. WWF UK is considered an expert in this field and the resulting research should yield some interesting results for UK organisations to take on board.”The full report ‘Water, the next carbon?’ is available here:
http://www.accaglobal.com/documents/WaterFootprinting.pdf Further information on ACCA’s work on sustainability can be found at: www.accaglobal.com/sustainability
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2 responses so far ↓
1 Sohail // Jun 2, 2009 at 7:08 am
There is no second opinion that the topic is of extreme importance. Water has been a subject of conflicts and wars in the past and also there are many countries facing this problem. Some of the african countries have already seen the destruction of civilization caused by its paucity. Unfortunately no proper action was taken due to lack of awareness and basic knowledge. Pakistan is another example; despite having host of glaciers and a reasonable canal network, its resources are continuously dwindling and are cause of concern. Water tables are going down. Public health engineering is going bad to worse. Water purity is declining. Even the bottled waters being sold are of substandard quality. Government is hopelessly adamant to accepting seriousness of matter. Not only we are going to face problem with water management, we will have to see our oxygen levels dropping and toxic gasses reducing the percentage of oxygen in atmosphere. Drop in water reserves is going to cause a devastating effect and herald national catastrophe in general health standards.
WE MUST GO AFTER THIS PROBLEM ON WAR FOOTING.
2 ella // Dec 30, 2009 at 6:43 am
Thanks for your sharing.so wonderful!wish you have a lovely day and Happy new year.
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