The Case for Water Disclosure

This report details the rationale for the Carbon Disclosure Project’s new program, the CDP Water Disclosure, a new initiative that will help institutional investors better understand the business risks and opportunities associated with water scarcity and other water-related issues by increasing the availability of high quality business information on this critical issue.

CDP Water Disclosure will provide a system for businesses to report their use of water and their exposure to changing patterns of water availability. Companies face risks such as lack of water impacting agricultural and manufacturing processes and the threat of regulation increasing prices and limiting the volume of water available to them. It is a vital tool for investors and businesses to be able to evaluate companies’ ability to operate successfully in a water-constrained world.

The United Nations forecasts that by 2030 almost half of the world population will live in areas facing water stress or water scarcity.  Less than 1 percent of the world’s water is easily accessible fresh water and the effects of climate change, increasing population, urbanisation, per capita demand, and pollution damage to supplies will put even greater pressure on these limited resources.

CDP, an independent not-for-profit organisation, has gathered primary corporate climate change information from thousands of businesses around the world so that it can be incorporated into business and policy decision making.  With the launch of CDP Water Disclosure it is using the same established system in order to tackle the increasingly vital issue of water scarcity.