Dear John,
Today, in tandem with World Water Day, we are celebrating a moment of pride and progress: 100 investors have signed on to work with large companies on water stewardship through the Ceres Valuing Water Finance Initiative.
This milestone, achieved less than two years after launching the initiative, confirms investors’ growing unease with how companies are managing increasingly scarce and polluted water resources. These investors know the stakes couldn’t be any higher.
Illustrating our precarious future when it comes to water, more than 30% of global GDP is projected to face high water stress by 2050. But the water crisis is not just putting pressure on economies and businesses. It’s threatening communities and ecosystems that need abundant clean water to thrive.
But we are hopeful.
The world is starting to understand that water challenges cannot be solved in a silo. Water is both essential to, and relies on, a stable climate and vibrant biodiversity. More and more, water is being recognized as a critical component of climate- and nature-related discussions and goals. We’re starting to see this in the private sector too, with some companies developing solutions with multiple sustainability issues in mind.
Investors with the Valuing Water Finance Initiative are urging 72 companies along on this path, supporting their efforts to build broad strategies tackling interconnected water issues including pollution, ecosystem damage, and impacts to water supplies that communities need. Through a combination of dialogues and shareholder resolutions, they are seeing companies make progress, particularly in assessing water risk in their supply chains, a crucial step to mitigating risk where water is most material to their business.
Our benchmark report highlights other ways companies are making headway with effective practices such as regenerative agriculture and water recycling. More companies are also joining forces with peers, NGOs, governments, and other stakeholders to implement solutions in water-stressed basins. |
| Despite these bright spots, the report shows most companies have a long way to go on their water stewardship journey. Investors see this writing on the wall and have the power of influence to help them speed up the process. We look forward to more investors joining this effort to support companies as they build resiliency while doing their part to ensure global water security. |
