How European companies are coping with water stress

Water stress in Europe. Because of climate change companies worldwide are facing new challenges. Water scarcity, flooding, droughts and water quality have become serious operating risks. CDP recently published data on how companies globally deal with these risks, including stories from Europe. Companies out of the UK, France, Spain, Italy and Germany reveal how they were struck by the consequences of climate change.

On the internet data of 93 European companies who responded to the CDP-survey are now available. From all these companies there are 58 reports of the impact of climate change. These reports vary from repairing infrastructure after flooding to changing operations because of growing water scarcity and closing the business down after flooding. In a former CDP-study became clear European companies are worldwide leading in water governance.

Global damage
In 2013 in Europe companies seem to be more aware of the risks of water stress. By now the risks have become more evident globally. More than 70% of the western United States has been hit by severe drought. Losses to California’s economy total are estimates at 2.2 billion dollars this year. And also China has been suffering from a nationwide shortage of both water and energy resources.

Constrain growth
The CDP-report ‘From water risk to value creation’ analyses the disclosures from 174 Global 500 companies in sectors with high water vulnerabilities and impacts. It concludes water insecurity is likely to constrain growth. Almost one quarter (22%) of responding companies report that issues around water could limit the growth of their business. Of these, one-third expects that constraint to be felt in the next 12 months.