Climate change is driving many types of water challenges, including water scarcity and abundance, worsening water quality, and shifts in timing of the hydrologic cycle. Shocks and stresses affect the resilience of water systems and the stakeholders that rely on them. Specific guidance on how to understand system resilience and measure systematic changes and intervening actions can ensure a more resilient future for all.
As the co-secretariat of the UN Global Compact’s CEO Water Mandate, the Pacific Institute is pleased to be a leading contributor at the upcoming World Water Week.
The complexity of global water challenges requires meaningful action across sectors, including the business sector. A critical aspect of business engagement in successful water stewardship is setting water targets that address the shared water challenges in the water basins where a company operates, sources, and provides goods and services, and that enable actions that reduce or eliminate the associated water risks.
Nature-based solutions use or mimic natural processes to meet societal and environmental needs. They can be used to restore, manage, or protect water resources while also increasing biodiversity and providing additional social and economic benefits. Yet there is no standardized method to identify, estimate, and monitor the benefits that nature-based solutions can provide, making it hard to build the case for investments in these solutions.
The business community has a key role to play in responding to COVID-19, rebuilding the economy, and preventing and mitigating future shock events — both broadly speaking and specifically regarding water and handwashing. This second in the Pacific Institute’s Business Framework for Water and the COVID-19 Pandemic issue brief series continues to explore the role of businesses in a robust COVID-19 response, outlining how businesses can contribute to a “blue” economic recovery and help make society more resilient to future shocks.
The CEO Water Mandate and the Pacific Institute held a webinar on August 18, 2020, titled “Lessons from India and South Africa: Setting Site Water Targets to Drive Action.”
Nature-based solution (NBS) can improve degraded ecosystems, help sequester carbon, and manage the effects of climate change, including extreme weather events. Businesses are beginning to recognize the value of NBS for climate change mitigation, adaptation, and resilience.
As large users of natural resources, including water, the private sector has disproportionate impacts and dependencies on natural capital.
Para combater a propagação da COVID-19 e reconstruir nossas economias durante e após a pandemia, uma ação coletiva em relação à água é essencial. Tal ação pode ajudar não apenas a conter o vírus, como também a realizar o direito humano à água e acelerar a economia “azul”, na qual o bem-estar econômico e a resiliência hídrica se reforçam mutuamente. A comunidade empresarial pode desempenhar um papel fundamental no combate à disseminação da COVID-19, bem como reconstruir a economia e reduzir o risco de choques futuros.
To combat the spread of the COVID-19 virus and rebuild our economies during and after the pandemic, collective action on water is essential. Such action can help not only to contain the virus, but also to realize the human right to water and accelerate the “blue” economy, whereby economic well-being and water resilience mutually reinforce one another.
