Investors urge companies to come clean over water risks

James Murray in Business Green: Most companies operating in water-intensive industries are failing to provide investors with adequate information on the water-related risks they face and in many cases have little idea how their supply chains could be affected by water shortages.

That is the stark conclusion of a major report from sustainable investor group Ceres, financial services firm UBS and news agency Bloomberg, which yesterday warned many firms operating in water-intensive industries have "weak management and disclosure of water-related risks and opportunities".

The study, titled Murky Waters: Corporate Reporting on Water Risk, assessed the water-related disclosures of 100 of the largest publicly traded companies operating in the food, drink, electricity, mining, oil and gas, semiconductor, chemicals and construction industries. Researchers scored the companies' water policies out of 100, but found that even the best-performing firms, beverage giant Diageo, Swiss mining company Xstrata and US electricity provider Pinnacle West, scored no more than 43 points.

Overall it revealed that many companies did not include any information on water risks and performance in their financial filings and provided no data on how water shortages could affect facilities operating in water-stressed regions.

Remarkably, not one of the companies provided detailed water data on their supply chains, despite the fact that many of them operate global supply chains with sizeable water footprints in parts of the world that are at high risk from the increased incidence of droughts.

"Most companies provide basic disclosure on overall water use and water scarcity concerns, but their focus and attention so far is not nearly at the level needed given the enormity of this growing global challenge," said Mindy S Lubber, president of Ceres. "Our global economy runs on water and in many parts of the world this finite resource is under threat. Companies must do more to disclose their potential exposure from this issue and their strategies for responding."…

Inverness Business Park water tower off of I-25 south of Denver, Colorado. Shot by Salvez Dodd, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license