Rethinking the water cycle through corporate collaboration

"Business as usual will lead to a 40 percent gap in supply demand of water by 2030," said Emilio Tenuta, vice president of corporate sustainability at Ecolab. However, despite water conservation projects, since 2011, corporate water use has declined only by 10 percent.

According to Tenuta, if the world is to address the pressing issue of water quality scarcity, "we're going to have to create partnerships that accelerate change and reinvent the way we work." 

Success and resilience in a water quality constrained world will require ingenuity and collaboration to go beyond conservation to reuse, recycling and stewardship. One of these partnerships includes Ecolab, a global services provider; software solutions provider Microsoft; and Trucost, a natural capital accounting expert. 

Together, they are aiming to be part of the solution by improving water risk analysis in the next-generation Water Risk Monetizer tool, which they launched in March. Collaboration helps leverage perspective and expertise to be part of the solution, said Tenuta: "Water conservation alone is delaying the inevitable."