New Global Water Certification Program Responds to Water Worries

Water sustainability is a major emerging issue and one that affects a huge number of people. Climate change is expected to lead to increased drought, while a growing (and in some parts of the world increasingly prosperous) population puts increasing pressure on scarce water resources. The BBC notes that the malnourishment of more than 800 million people is associated with a lack of water to grow their food, while water-borne diseases affect more than half of people currently occupying the world’s hospital beds. Safe, clean drinking water is a luxury that more than one billion people have to do without.

The World Water Week in Stockholm, Sweden, is an annual meeting where experts, practitioners, leaders, and decision-makers get together to focus on the world’s most urgent water-related issues. Held August 16-22, this year’s meeting brings together perspectives of scientific, business, policy and civic sectors from around the world to explore the theme of access to water in the face of uncertain availability coupled with growing demand.

One solution to the problem of unsustainable water use, put forward at the summit by a group of leading business, social development and conservation organizations, is the development of a new voluntary global water certification program. The Alliance for Water Stewardship has been created to develop best-practice standards for managing water responsibly and to recognize responsible corporations, farming operations, cities, and other water users through certification, similar to the certification of sustainably harvested wood by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). Certified companies and other water users would need to meet standards on environmentally sustainable as well as socially beneficial water use.

We've been finding for a while that people around the world are becoming increasingly worried about water- and are indeed more concerned about it than about other high-profile environmental problems like climate change or species depletion. So surely companies that take the issue of sustainable water use seriously deserve to be recognized? A recognized system of certification would make it easier for consumers to make ethical choices, and would benefit companies that recognize just how precious this finite resource really is.