In an age where technology enables consumers to track their meal from field to table, and beverages from orchard to refrigerator, sustainability has become an increasingly powerful market force. Customer demand for information is leading to improved labeling and sourcing information that is impacting supplier behavior across a broad range of consumer and business goods. In fact, “Life Cycle Planning” is influencing everything from food and beverages to copy machines and electronics.
In an increasingly resource-limited world, it is important to note that accessibility and sustainability are key to ensuring that critical resources are available when needed most. Highlighting the urgency of this mission is World Water Day. This year’s theme recognized the connection between water and sustainable development. With water issues, both drought and flooding, making international headlines from California to Indonesia, this means we must use all the tools – technological and otherwise – at our disposal to ensure sustainability. For without water life – sustaining plants, animals and communities cannot survive – let alone flourish.
As we move from winter to spring, sustainability is a particularly timely theme in that the more connected we become, the more our water challenges are increasingly interconnected. Water access issues can no longer be constrained to a drought issue in some far-flung locale. Instead, we must now consider how growing cities and the utilities that serve them; local farms and the communities that surround them; and children who are among the most vulnerable to disease, rely on development that considers water issues.
New technology applications and processes allow utilities to optimize available resources to make sure that we are maximizing every available water source. Connected or smart communities too can benefit from increased data about water consumption and needs.
In the U.S., the economic costs of a recent water main break in Los Angeles compounded the region’s years-long drought. Moreover, excess water too can pose challenges from coastal resiliency planning issues to missed opportunities to alleviate drought. In Indonesia, flooding in late 2014 was cited as one of the factors contributing to delayed distribution and an increase in the 2015 price of the country’s rice crop. In February of this year, flooding in Jakarta displaced thousands. These populations are grappling with questions such as where or how can excess water be diverted, captured and stored. What investments will it take to bring the water up to acceptable drinking water standards?
Sustainable development means overcoming a collective unwillingness to consider and fund preparation for extreme events. It also means using all available information and data to create value for communities struggling with water issues.
Addressing water accessibility and sustainability challenges will require leadership. It will rely on leaders that are willing to promote new and innovative thinking. It will also need leaders that are willing to shift decision making to a more integrated approach that involves more people and more data. If we get it right, we will fundamentally improve quality of life for people in any location in the world.
Let us each commit to taking a leadership role in becoming water aware, examining the health of our water ways, tunnels, reservoirs and other infrastructure with an eye toward rehabilitating or replacing those that leave us most vulnerable to water waste and loss. While sitcom parodies showing well-intentioned “hipsters” utterly consumed with the origins of their food may be over-the-top, the underlying message of sustainability is spot on.
Mike Orth is Executive Managing Director for the Americas in Black & Veatch’s water business.
