Sedex Global and World Wildlife Fund have today released a briefing paper to help companies understand, address and innovate around water risks and opportunities in their supply chain.

Published in the run up to World Water Day - 22nd March 2015 - the new Sedex WWF Water Risk Briefing, part of a series created by Sedex and partners to raise awareness of responsible sourcing issues, analysed data from over 20,000 audits on the Sedex Global platform to reveal key insights into how water is managed throughout global supply chains.

The briefing:

• introduces why water poses risks to business
• identifies common water risks in global supply chains
• provides best practices and tools to help companies tackle water risks in global supply chains
• previews opportunities for basin-level solutions to water

The briefing finds that the majority of environmental non-compliances in global supply chains originate from a lack of understanding of relevant laws and regulations, despite the fact that the majority of self-assessors believe they meet all relevant requirements.

Audits conducted at supplier sites show that environmental issues, including water, are among the top five non-compliances globally. Of key water-related issues, a lack of available permits is the most common, representing 19%. Others include inadequate waste disposal systems (12%), waste water treatment (2%), management of water usage (1%) and lack of an effluent treatment plant (1%)

Supply chain respondents - 97% believe they meet all legal requirements

Supplier sites own self-assessment data shows that:

• 97% of respondents believe they meet all relevant legal and customer requirements
• Less than 1% are unaware of the relevant requirements
• 86% have senior manager or board level representation for water related matters
• 91% do not believe themselves to be in a particularly water stressed area
• 52% do not assess their impacts on water usage
• 43% report an environmental management policy which covers water issues; and 79% a policy for water management
• 73% have targets to manage the reduction and re-use of water
• 48% have assessed the impact of water usage on the water catchment
• Only 14% have a dedicated internal resource for implementing necessary procedures
• 75% are assessing water pollution related risks and a further 73% are setting targets in relation to their findings
• 48% have assessed the impact of water usage on the water catchment

The briefing studies the partnership between Sedex members Marks & Spencer and Woolworths (South Africa) with WWF and the Alliance for Water Stewardship in South Africa’s Western Cape as an example of successful collaboration.

The project worked with nine farmers in the stone fruit supply chain to help assess their water usage and identify opportunities for improvements, as well as bringing the farmers together with other catchment stakeholders to assess the wider catchment risks.

Lindsay Bass, manager of US corporate water stewardship at World Wildlife Fund, commented:

“We don’t expect all companies to be water conservation specialists. As this brief shows, the issues are much more complicated than people realize - but that’s exactly why collaboration is essential. We all need to work together to facilitate new, innovative ways to responsibly manage and share water.”

“Water-related supply chain risks can have a profound impact on companies by affecting profitability, brand value and even ability to operate ”, said Marianne Voss, report co-author at Sedex. “Good examples from Sedex’s global membership and beyond highlight how capacity building can aid suppliers’ understanding and further collaboration on a local, river basin level as well as on a bigger scale.”

The briefing concludes that although positive efforts are being made to manage and set targets around water risks, improved, more collaborative systems are needed to help suppliers ensure environmental legal requirements are met.

Click here to download The Water Briefing paper in full