All Articles About Water

BSR Insight Article: The Human Face of Water-Related Risk Assessments

Linda Hwang, Former Manager, Research

At the CEO Water Mandate meeting in Copenhagen last week—which focused on corporate water disclosure—one participant reminded us of the connections between water, healthy populations, and corporate performance. Despite the growing number of  tools to help investors and companies assess water-related risks, companies will miss a critical factor when evaluating their long-term risks if the tools do not link physical-, regulatory-, and reputational-risk frameworks to people’s ability to participate in the growth of healthy economies. Read more →

Posted: May 24, 2011 | Topics: Community Engagement & Development, Economic Development, Economic, Social & Cultural Rights, Strategy & Integration, Supply Chain, Water

BSR Insight Article: Water as an Unequal Human Right

A recent posting on Visualizing.org—a creative community that provides graphical representations of data on complex issues—looks at the differences in how "consuming" countries and developing countries use water and are affected by the lack of clean water. The visual representation—created by Tuduyen Nguyen and Cameron Reynolds-Flatt—was created to encourage people to conserve water resources by pointing out facts such as the number of bottles of water consumed each year in the United States and the percentage of the world’s population that lives without basic sanitation. Read more →

Posted: May 17, 2011 | Topics: Economic, Social & Cultural Rights, Environment, Water

Blog: One Vision of China's Water Scarcity

Mark Little, Director, Healthcare, Advisory Services

A provocative image by Shanghai artist Zhao Xian Feng, who exhibits dozens of works with water scarcity as the central theme. Throughout China, he says, water scarcity is a looming issue—one tied to the country's enormous population boom. Read more →

Posted: May 2, 2011 | Topics: Water

BSR Insight Article: Coca-Cola Announces US$6 Million Investment in Clean Water Programs

According to the World Health Organization, African women and children spend up to 40 billion hours per year collecting water. Because they often travel long distances to retrieve clean water, women frequently resort to using unsafe water sources, putting themselves and their families at risk of life-threatening diseases. Read more →

Posted: April 5, 2011 | Topics: Community Engagement & Development, Water, Women & Sustainability

Blog: Debating the Future of Sustainability at the IFC

Julia Nelson, Former Manager, Advisory Services

This week marks the close of the third and final public consultation period for the review of the International Finance Corporation’s (IFC) Sustainability Framework. The policies, standards, and guidance notes in the Framework set expectations on social and environmental performance for the financial institutions and companies who receive funds from the IFC (the private sector investment arm of the World Bank Group). Read more →

Posted: March 3, 2011 | Topics: Community Engagement & Development, Economic, Social & Cultural Rights, Human Rights, Investor Perspective, Water