Greening Campuses, but Not Classrooms

The conversation on college and university campuses about environmental issues has grown more robust in recent years. Nearly every school — four-year and two-year schools alike — seems to have a program aimed at, variously, reducing energy and water use, harnessing renewable energy, increasing recycling and composting, ramping up green procurement, reducing toxic materials, and promoting driving alternatives. Everyone from deans to janitors have gotten into the act, making commitments on climate, cleaning, computers, and more.

But all this green action seems to be cutting class.

That's one conclusion from a comprehensive new study aimed at assessing "the extent to which college and university leaders value environmental performance and sustainability and are putting these values into practice." Campus Environment 2008 (Download - PDF) from the National Wildlife Federation surveyed nearly 1,100 campuses and compared the results to a similar survey done in 2001. It's the largest such survey done in the United States.

NWF found that while campus administrators are ramping up their commitments to reduce their schools' environmental impacts and making significant changes in day-to-day operations, environmental academics are lagging, and may have declined since 2001.

It's not surprising that campuses are getting greener, based on the growth of green-campus organizations and initiatives I've witnessed over the past few years. Last year, when I keynoted a conference of APPA, an association of campus facility managers, I found a whole ecosystem of groups, including the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education; Campus Safety, Health, and Environmental Management Association; Campus Sustainability Planning Network; National Association of College and University Business Officers; and the Society for College and University Planning. All are concerned about the greening of campuses. Nearly 600 U.S. college presidents have signed the President's Climate Commitment, which mandates that signatories develop a comprehensive plan to achieve climate neutrality, take specific actions, and report publicly on their progress. And the Talloires Network includes more than 60 schools on five continents that have committed to work towards sustainability. You can now find ratings of the greenest U.S. campuses from Princeton Review — a refreshing counterbalance to the publication's infamous ratings of party schools.

And this doesn't include students' extracurricular activities: conservation clubs, climate action groups, Earth Day chapters, campus greening groups, food activists, and chapters of Net Impact, a network of business students and recent grads interested in corporate social responsibility. And then there are the campus organizing programs of Environment America (formerly U.S. PIRG), Greenpeace, National Wildlife Federation, and others.

But what about in the classroom? There, the news isn't so good. According to NWF's study, between the years 2001 and 2008, the amount of sustainability-related education offered on campuses did not increase and may have even declined. That's surprising, given the apparent growth in "green MBA" programs and other courses of study that focus on environmental topics.

According to NWF:

Today's student is just as unlikely as in 2001 to graduate with exposure to basic ecological principles, much less with an understanding of how the human-designed economy can work in harmony with natural systems. At only a minority of schools have 50% or more of the students taken a course on the basic functions of the earth's natural systems and even fewer have taken courses on the connection between human activity and environmental sustainability.

Areas such as business, engineering, and teacher education still lag far behind the natural and physical sciences in offering environmental or sustainability courses within their disciplines. Relatively small percentages of campuses offer interdisciplinary degree opportunities in environmental and sustainability studies. Moreover, considerably fewer campuses today require all students to take courses on environmental or sustainability topics.

The study found that while a large majority of campuses report that at least some of their undergraduates are exposed to basic ecology and environmental sustainability, this number has decreased since 2001. Relatively few schools offer a certificate or other recognition in environmental or sustainability studies.

Moreover, support for faculty professional development has also declined since 2001. One-third of all campuses have programs to support faculty professional development on environmental or sustainability topics, down from half in 2001. Few schools evaluate or recognize how faculty integrates environmental or sustainability topics into their courses, which hasn't changed since 2001. And a small minority of schools continue to have research institutes that study sustainability, climate change, or clean energy issues, though this is less prevalent now among four-year schools, NWF found.

"The real shocker was how little progress seems to have been made on teaching sutainability directly in higher education's environmental programs and in integrating sustainability principles throughout the curricula," Kevin Coyle, NWF's Vice President for Education, told me. "If we are looking ahead at a new energy economy and new ways of devloping products, machines, structures, and business systems to support it — it seems that American higher education has a lot of ground to make up."

That's a sad state of affairs given the enormity of some of the challenges we face. As we tackle climate change, and the growing global need for sustainable food, shelter, and mobility, we'll need to throw our best and brightest at the tasks. That they enter the workforce ill-educated about the basics of ecological systems and sustainability — and how these relate to their chosen professions — does not bode well. It suggests that the workforce of tomorrow will be no more up to the professional, technical, and cultural challenges than those that preceded them.

There's a bit of irony in all this, with campus administrators making bold commitments to getting their houses in order, from both a strategic and operational perspective, but not managing to make similar commitments to their students.

Julian Keniry, who runs NWF's Campus Ecology program, summed it up nicely: The campuses, she says, are "failing to preach what they practice."

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Carbon-Free Energy, Cutting Poverty in Half: Mr. Gore, Meet Mr. Edwards

In recent weeks, former vice president Al Gore challenged Americans to commit to producing 100 percent of electricity from "renewable energy and clean carbon-free sources" within 10 years. And former senator John Edwards launched a Half in Ten campaign "to reduce poverty in the United States by 50 percent within 10 years." Two bold, audacious goals. Same starting dates. Same decade-long trajectory.

So, is there any chance that Messrs. Gore and Edwards might possibly join forces?

Not likely, based on what I've seen and heard to date. That their respective laudable and ambitious goals could possibly be synergistic seems beyond the grasp of these two leaders and their acolytes.

I've covered this topic — the job-creation potential of clean technology and renewable energy — repeatedly over the years (see posts in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008). While the job-growth trajectories may not have been as rapid or steep as anticipated, there's no doubting the rich potential opportunities, especially at the local level. All solar is local, to paraphrase Tip O'Neill, as is all wind, geothermal, wave, tidal, and biomass energy. That is to say, renewable energy has the potential to create jobs in every metropolis, town, and village — and every congressional district.

Why are two campaigns with identical 10-year horizons proposed by two former presidential candidates of the same age and political party (and from adjacent states) being treated as unconnected, separate efforts? Why aren't the initiatives to bolster our environmental, energy, and economic security joined at the proverbial hip? I don't have an answer; let me know if you do.

This is a problem on many fronts. First and foremost, it is a lost opportunity to connect the dots between growing markets for clean renewable energy and the need to create American jobs for the underclass sufficient to raise their standard of living above the poverty line. Beyond that, it evokes the criticism of the "environmental movement" levied in The Death of Environmentalism, the 2004 paper (Download - PDF) issued on the eve of the last presidential election. Adam Werbach, in his a speech on the topic that fall at the Commonwealth Club of California, charged that environmentalism, "an ideology focused on the inter-relationship of all things, came to be an ideology of things" such as seal pups, redwoods, clean air, Yosemite, clean water, and toxic waste. He continued his indictment of environmentalists:

Some of the things they have been taught not to think of when they think of the environment are AIDS in Africa, the tax code, highways, homeless people, asthma, good jobs and the war in Iraq. Each of those things — "environmental" or not — are stripped by American environmentalism and its sister ideology, liberalism, of their native habitat, their context, and their web of connections. They are single "issues," each requiring its own movement and experts.

Four years later, not much has changed. We're still not connecting the dots.

It's not for lack of dots. There are countless competent, influential organizations working in these arenas: Green for All and the Apollo Alliance, on creating green jobs for the underclass; the American Council on Renewable Energy, on rational, national energy policy that gives renewables their due; Gore's own Alliance for Climate Protection; Edwards' Half in Ten, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, the Coalition on Human Needs, and scores of other groups working on poverty issues; and literally hundreds of other organizations. I've checked the websites of all of the above-named groups. None of them mentioned both the Gore and Edwards challenges.

Even Edwards himself doesn't seem to have connected the dots. I encountered the former senator at a reception in San Francisco a couple weeks ago, following an on-stage interview in which he had talked up his anti-poverty crusade. I asked him whether he'd considered joining forces with Gore's campaign to jointly accomplish their respective goals. He listened intently and responded, in effect, that it sounded like a good idea.

It is. Why doesn't anyone seem to get that? Sen. Obama? Sen. McCain? Isn't this year's presidential allegedly dominated by energy prices and the stumbling economy?

Anyone else? Opportunity is knocking, and the time is short.

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Going Down Under, Down Under

My life often takes me to amazing places, no more amazing than the Great Barrier Reef, where I've just taken two dives. I'm not an experienced diver, though my two dives off the coast of Cairns, Australia, nonetheless rank high in life experiences. Hovering over almost any spot of the reef yielded an abundance of life, the level of action growing the longer one stays and looks.

My too-brief Australian adventure took place en route to Wellington, New Zealand, from where this is being written. I'm here for World Environment Day, which, for the initiated, is a United Nations-sponsored event, celebrated since the mid 1980s each June 5, hosted by a different city. Wellington is this year's host and the theme — "Kicking the Carbon Habit" — seems as fanciful as it is formidable. In typical U.N. fashion, it is relatively uncontroversial, meaning no swipes at Big Oil or Big Coal, no carping at Big Auto or Big Finance, no finger-pointing at Big Mining or Big Timber, no blaming of countries, political leaders, or pretty much anyone else. We're all here to be part of the solution.

Everything else down here should be so uncomplicated. Unfortunately, Australia and, so a lesser extent, New Zealand, seem to be going through the same throes of change as their brethren in Japan, North America, Europe, and elsewhere. High energy prices are roiling national politics, leading legislators to propose short-term gas tax rollbacks to ease prices at the pump. Administration officials, scientists, and activists are debating the extent to which the country should cut its carbon emissions — and who should pay for it. Critics charge the national government is giving short shrift to clean energy, while solar, geothermal, and wind energy companies are vying with one another over who will get the spoils of the country's growing appetite for clean energy. Meanwhile, the local media are having a field day finding hypocrites amid the ranks: legislators touting fuel efficiency but driving gas-guzzlers; corporations touting their green credentials but leaving their office lights burning brightly all night; the frivolity of government ethanol mandates amid rising food prices.

In other words, it feels just like home.

It's not entirely, of course. New Zealand, for example, is in many ways a shining beacon of sustainability, relatively speaking. Last year, Prime Minister Helen Clark announced her intention that New Zealand become the first carbon-neutral country, proclaiming: "I believe New Zealand can aim to be the first nation to be truly sustainable across the four pillars of the economy, society, the environment and nationhood. I believe we can aspire to be carbon neutral in our economy and way of life." New Zealand will have to do (friendly) battle with Costa Rica, Iceland, and Norway — all of which have made similar declarations.

Suddenly, it's no longer feeling that much like home.

Much like my dive, it seems that the longer you stay in one place, the more you can see.

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The Global Water Tool: Making Corporate Water Data a Little Less Dry

World Water Week is upon us, an annual fete of all things H2O. The event, held in Stockholm, is the leading global meeting place for experts from businesses, governments, science, NGOs, academe, and United Nations agencies. This year's event features the launch on Tuesday of a remarkable Global Water Tool, a free online resource to help companies calculate water consumption and efficiency across a portfolio of facilities around the world.

The tool is the product of the World Business Council on Sustainable Development, a Geneva-based organization of some 200 international companies representing 30 countries and 20 industrial sectors. Nearly all of its members have core businesses that depend heavily on water: Alcan and Alcoa (aluminum production), ConocoPhillips and Shell (oil production and refining), Dow and Dupont (chemicals and ag products), Rio Tinto (mining), Lafarge and Holcim (cement), Pepsico and Suez (water and beverages).

Indeed, pretty much all large companies depend heavily on water.

One of the challenges such companies face is assessing the potential risks posed by water's uneven quality and quantity from place to place, and even from time to time in the same place. For companies, the questions are many: How many sites are in extremely water-scarce areas? Which sites are at greatest risk? How that will change in the future? How many employees live in countries that lack access to improved water and sanitation? How many suppliers are in water-scarce areas now, or will be in ten or twenty years?

Few companies can comprehensively answer such questions, leaving them at risk for disruptive water shortages and droughts. A recent study by the Pacific Institute found that while most corporate sustainability reports address freshwater use, "few offer insight into many water-related risks facing businesses. Most reports lack context, quantitative data, supply chain information, and consistent methods and definitions," the institute reported. That's a risk unto itself, akin to being a timber company that isn't measuring and tracking the future of forests.

As I've noted in the past, water issues are of growing concern to business, especially with the rising tide of concern about climate change:

Unlike climate issues, where problems and their solutions have global impacts, water will be seen as a mostly local issue requiring local actions. But, if as experts predict, warmer climates and lowered water tables lead to widespread disruptions, activists and regulators will begin to connect the dots, foisting regulations or global treaties upon the business community.

It's not just the poorest economies where water is a concern. Wealthy nations, too are increasingly facing water stress for their plants, animals, and humans. In Australia, for example, what's been called the worst drought in a thousand years is pitting farmers selling food for export -- a major source of national income -- against households, communities, and industries needing water on the domestic front.

The World Water Tool aims to help companies evaluate and address water risks and impacts in their operations and supply chains in order to minimize risks. The tool is the brainchild of Jan Dell, vice president of CH2M Hill, the global engineering and construction firm, which has been doing water risk analyses for big companies for years. Dell was frustrated at the dearth of readily accessible up-to-date data about water at the local level around the world. Each time her firm did an analysis, they had to go online, pull data from a series of databases maintained by United Nations and other organizations, and put it together in some comprehensible way. It wasn't easy or efficient, even for experienced pros.

With good reason. Gathering data about water for a far-flung operation can be more complex than analyzing something like greenhouse gas emissions, which itself can be overwhemling for many companies. With climate, you simply add up the data from each location to measure your company's footprint; a ton of carbon is the same wherever you go. With water, your company's footprint depends in part on local water conditions. If water is scarce, even the most efficient operation may be too much. When it's plentiful, conservation measures may not make sense. So, you need to understand the local situation to make sound business decisions. For example, in areas with lots of water, it may not be cost effective to put in energy-intensive water recycling facilities.

"It occurred to me a that a tool could be created, and that it shouldn't be a commercial one," Dell recounted to me last week. With the strong backing of CH2M Hill chairman and CEO Ralph R. Peterson, Dell donated countless hours in partnership with WBCSD and its member companies to create a tool that would simplify the data gathering and analysis process -- and to make it free to all users.

The resulting tool has two parts: an input sheet and an online map. The input sheet contains the company's site location and water use information. After entering your company's water use figures, the sheet automatically provides outputs, including water indicators compatible with the Global Reporting Initiative requirements and downloadable metrics charts that demonstrate the company's data combined with both the country and watershed figures.

The online mapping feature enables companies to plot their sites with external water datasets (from the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization, World Health Organization, and Unicef, among others) and download those locations in a map. These datasets provide several key metrics, including renewable water resource per capita, mean annual relative water stress index, and access to improved sanitation. The tool is linked to Google Earth, which provides spatial viewing of a company's site locations in relation to detailed geographic information, including surface water.

The product of all this is a comparison of your company's water uses with key external water-related data; key water GRI Indicators, inventories, risk and performance metrics and geographic mapping; an assessment of relative water risks in your company's portfolio; and the calculation of water consumption and efficiency data.

It sounds complex, but it's not. The tool is fairly intuitive to use. Says Dell: "It could have been a spaceship, but we really tried to build a bicycle that everyone could ride."

Poring over such calculations and assessments may seem, well, dry, to most of us, but they are nothing short of revolutionary for those inside companies seeking to understand how climate change and other environmental challenges create both risks and opportunities.

Of course, the goal in all of this is for companies to take action, "not just to collect data and make charts," as Dell put it. But one tends to follow the other, and that makes the World Water Tool an essential part of any big company's efforts to quench its thirst for water in a way that is sustainable -- economically, environmentally, and socially.

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Learning to Love (and Value) Ecosystem Services

Ecosystems must be viewed as huge capital assets, affected by nearly all development and investment decisions, according to a report released this week.

This finding isn't exactly new. Researchers have long been saying that we risk our economic future as we plunder and degrade our forests, coasts, wetlands, aquifers, topsoil, coral reefs, and other natural systems upon which business and commerce depend. As I've written in the past (see here here, and here), all companies ultimately depend on the availability of healthy ecosystems -- whether they use raw materials directly or rely on the availability of products manufactured from those materials.

The United Nations Millennium Assessment in 2005 reported the extent to which economies depend on the capital lying within nature's lands, waters, forests, and reefs. The new report, Restoring Nature's Capital (download - PDF) presents the results of the earliest concerted thinking about how to address both the stark realities and the enormous potential uncovered by the UN report.

The authors contend that nature's benefits -- both economic and social -- could sustain many more generations if businesses, governments, and civil society pursue the UN's action agenda, which calls for an increase in the availability of information on ecosystem services and a redressing of the balance in favor of local rights to resources and local voices in decision making. It also calls for managing decisions across levels -- local, regional, national, and international -- and increasing the use of accountability mechanisms and economic and financial incentives.

The solutions are all before us, says WRI.

The challenges, while enormous, are not insurmountable. We believe that the seeds of change needed to put us on a path to sustaining ecosystem services are already emerging, assembled from existing pockets of best practice around the globe. What might the world of decision-making look like in 2030 if these seeds germinate and transform the way we see and value our ecosystem services? Will it become second nature for people to safeguard the capacity of ecosystems to provide the mosaic of services necessary for human wellbeing? Will ecosystem health and development aspirations be viewed as mutually reinforcing sides of the same coin, instead of a zero sum game?

Imagine for a moment that the movement to ensure the sustainability of our natural assets and long-term wellbeing that is already underway in parts of the world grows across economic sectors and political boundaries. Led by participants in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, global business leaders with progressive ecosystem policies such as members of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, coalitions of governments such as the Poverty Environment Partnership, and multidisciplinary applied scientific groups such as the Resilience Alliance, the movement unleashes a new generation of information and governance approaches.

In this eco-idealistic world, everybody has a role to play:

• Business views ecosystem stewardship as a source of new markets and competitive advantage. Companies adopt policies on ecosystem services and routinely report to the public on how they are implementing them.

• Local communities have clear rights to resources in their communities and a significant voice in decisions about how they will be used and how the resulting costs and benefits will be distributed.

• Research communities embrace ecosystem services as a major research theme. Information from monitoring systems for ecosystem condition and trends is analyzed and broadly disseminated, informing economic and development policies and election priorities.

• Civil society performs the role of watchdog, solution provider, and trailblazer, making information available and enabling the public to hold business and government accountable.

• National governments monitor the health of ecosystem services and include indicators in national accounts, enabling the public to track progress and hold decision-makers accountable.

• International organizations play a lead role in establishing the conditions for institutional cooperation on ecosystem stewardship across political levels and geographic scales.

WRI goes beyond the ideal to offer an "action agenda" that involves strengthening each of these groups' ability to play their part effectively -- and suggests new institutions that might be needed to stimulate change.

What's most helpful about the WRI report is that it goes beyond the blame game of who has caused the destruction of ecosystems. Instead, it offers a plan and charts a course for change. These are exactly the kinds of tools we need these days: ones that give all players a script from which to read, pushing and prodding them to play their respective roles in the hopes that, in the end, we'll have a consistent, coherent story to tell.

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The Spoils of Success for the Natural Products Industry

The natural products industry has become a screaming success. That's mostly good news. It also offers some cautionary tales for the sustainable business sector.

That's my 2¢ worth, having just returned from Natural Products Expo West, an annual industry trade show and shindig that attracts some 40,000 visitors -- retailers and other industry professionals only, please, no outsiders allowed. The event fills nearly a million square feet of exhibition space at the Anaheim Convention Center, featuring some 2,700 exhibitors and dozens of professional education sessions -- not to mention countless sideshow book signings, cocktail receptions, private dinners, and blow-out parties. (I was there to lead a session on "Greening Your Business and Bottom Line.")

You don't need industry stats to know that health-minded products -- comprised of natural and organic foods, healthy ethnic and specialty foods, supplements, health and beauty goods, and "natural living" products, according to the organizers -- is big business, but the stats are impressive nonetheless: Sales in 2005 were just north of $50 billion in the U.S. alone, according to Natural Foods Merchandiser, and probably twice that globally.

A hundred billion dollars, to paraphrase Everett Dirksen, is real money. And it's attracting big industry players. The tales have been well told of corporate megaliths swallowing up some of the industry's best brands: Ben & Jerry's (Unilever), Stonyfield Farm (Danone), Tom's of Maine (Colgate-Palmolive), Horizon Organics (Dean Foods), Odwalla (Coca-Cola), Hains Foods (Heinz), Boca Burger (Kraft), Morningstar Farms (Kellogg), Seeds of Change (M&M/Mars), and many others.

But the cavernous halls of Expo West showed that behind these companies are still more big players, such as ADM and Cargill, offering sweeteners, emulsifiers, texturizers, stabilizers, strengtheners, conditioners, and assorted other ingredients contained in the science projects that comprise many of today's manufactured foods, both "natural" and otherwise.

And it's not just Big Ag. Big Pharma was amply present, too, serving up a mind-numbing array of botanical extracts and biotech-infused antioxidants, binders, carriers, diluents, hydrocolloids, lubricants, peptides, and other components that go into today's "natural products." (Hydroxypropyl Methylcellulose, anyone?)

To be sure, there were plenty of "pure" foods and personal care products, too -- those that were 100% organic, unadulterated with anything short of TLC.

It's all part of a massive industry that long ago crossed over into the "mainstream" category, attracting a wide spectrum of interests. Combing the aisles of the expo were dozens of buyers from Whole Foods Markets, as you'd expect, given that the company is now a Fortune 500 player, with nearly $5 billion in annual sales. But there were also buyers from Albertson's, Safeway, Sam's Club, Target, Wal-Mart, and most other major grocery chains and big-box retailers.

All good, of course, but there was something missing from it all, and it concerned me: The event seemed nearly devoid of anything political.

This is no small matter. Eating, as it's been said (by many, mostly attributed to restaurateur Alice Waters, but also to others), "is a political act," though you wouldn't know it from this event. Where were the activists -- those advocating family farms, animal welfare, local foods, farmers' markets, the integrity of the U.S. organic labeling law, slow food, GMO-free food, healthy produce for the underclass, genetic biodiversity, organic school lunches, the connection between factory farming and climate change? If they were present, I didn't see them. (A few exhibitors promoted Fair Trade goods, though most were also pushing products bearing that label.)

It concerned me, both for the future of food, but also for the future of "green." As environmentally-minded companies grow and the market matures, will the politics that underpin their products and services similarly get glossed over, or ignored altogether, in the name of revenue growth, mergers, and acquisitions? Will concerns over biodiversity, clearcutting, access to potable water, asthma epidemics, endangered species, loss of wetlands, nuclear waste, and smart growth be swept aside by green businesses' rush to claim market share?

Don't get me wrong: I'm not against seeing these businesses and their sectors prosper and flourish. I'm just hoping that these companies don't lose their souls in the name of sales.

The sustainable-business sector does have at least one positive lesson to learn from the natural products folks: The latter seem to have done a great job of emphasizing the benefits of their products in positive terms, not just non-negatives. Today's natural products aren't just absent of pesticides, antibiotics, and artificial what-not. They have flavor, antioxidants, age-defying botanicals, and many other beneficial attributes.

On the other hand, too many greenies engage in what I call "unvertising" -- impressive but uninspired lists of what's left out of their products: VOC-free, animal-friendly, climate-neutral, no old-growth fiber, mercury-free, non-petroleum, no artificial anything, etc. I can't think of many other businesses that have prospered by convincing the public that they are less bad. (One exception: The curious campaign by Cingular, now AT&T Wireless, boasting that it had the "Fewest Dropped Calls.")

For green products and services to sell, they'll have to emulate their natural-products brethren, learning how to articulate why they're good, not just why they're not bad. Otherwise, they will continue to suffer the huge chasm that exists between green concern and green consumerism -- shoppers' general unwillingness to align their dollars with their green values.

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One foodie footnote: A couple weeks ago, I had the pleasure of attending a presentation and conversation between Whole Foods CEO John Mackey and noted sustainable foods author and journalism professor Michael Pollan, which filled a 2,200-seat auditorium at UC Berkeley. The event was the culmination of an e-mail conversation that's taken place between Mackey and Pollan over the past year or so, archived here. I highly commend the webcast of the two-hour event, which includes a 45-minute presentation by Mackey on the "Past, Present, and Future of Food." It was both informative and inspiring, and gave me newfound respect for Mackey's company, which, despite its bigness, continues to learn, change, and innovate in the name of sustainable and healthy foods.

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The Cruel Irony of the Thirsty Rich

There's a cruel irony in a new report just out from the World Wildlife Fund: Water crises, long seen as a problem of only the poorest, are increasingly affecting some of the world's wealthiest nations.

That's a far cry from the usual water-related enviro-screed, which typically cites U.N. data pointing to the 1.1 billion people around the world who lack access to improved water supplies and the 2.6 billion who lack access to improved sanitation. It's become eco-chic to say that, "In the 21st century, water will be the new oil."

All true, of course. But as the WWF report, Rich Countries, Poor Water (PDF), points out, a combination of climate change, drought, and loss of wetlands that store water, along with poorly thought out water infrastructure and resource mismanagement, will lead to increasing water problems in countries such as Australia, Japan, the U.K., and the U.S.

In Europe, countries on the Atlantic are suffering recurring droughts, while water-intensive tourism and irrigated agriculture are endangering water resources in the Mediterranean. In Australia, the world's driest continent, salinity is a major threat to a large proportion of its key agricultural areas. Despite high rainfall in Japan, contamination of water supplies is an extremely serious issue in many areas. In the United States, large areas are already using substantially more water than can be naturally replenished. This situation will only be exacerbated as climate change brings lower rainfall, increased evaporation, and changed snowmelt patterns.

Says WWF:

Some of the world's thirstiest cities, such as Houston and Sydney, are using more water than can be replenished. In London, leakage and loss is estimated at 300 Olympic-size swimming pools daily due to ageing water mains. It is however notable that cities with less severe water issues such as New York tend to have a longer tradition of conserving catchment areas and expansive green areas within their boundaries.

The implications for companies doing business in the industrialized world are implicit if not explicit: access to water could easily become a constraint to operations. In some cases, water-related problems could lead to decreases in water allotments, more stringent water-quality regulations, growing community activism, and increased public scrutiny of water-related corporate activities. These may impact site selection, license to operate, productivity, costs, revenues, and, ultimately, profits and corporate viability. As the Pacific Institute put it in a 2004 report detailing risks to the private sector from inadequate freshwater resources: "Water-related risks now pose a potential multi-billion-dollar threat to a wide variety of businesses and investors."

(I've posted previously on this theme -- see, for example, this and this.)

What to do? The WWF report suggests that we have to change "our attitude toward water."

It is clear that fresh water has long been an under-appreciated and undervalued resource and the attitudes of developed country governments, industries, and populations to water need urgent revision.

Addressing this, says WWF, will involve the proper and equitable pricing of water and the ecosystem services provided by freshwater flows; the ending of subsidies that encourage wasteful use; ramping up water conservation and recycling efforts; maintaining and restoring aquatic ecosystems; and more.

That's just for starters. WWF says we'll also need to deal "openly and accountably" with water. That includes accounting for the cumulative impacts on human and natural water systems, "a factor often ignored in one-off project impact assessments"; and adopting a precautionary principle where knowledge of impacts or natural systems is inadequate.

The bottom line: Companies should expect to find water issues rising to the level of awareness that energy conservation and efficiency has seen in recent years. The good news is that companies that already have implemented comprehensive energy efficiency and management systems will have a jump on those that haven't. Addressing both energy and water involve extremely similar processes: conducting audits and establishing a current baseline; identifying cost-effective, low-hanging fruit for making efficiency improvements; generating organizational awareness of the issue through effective communication and training; getting top-level buy-in to tackle the bigger, longer-term, and more challenging issues, such as water-intensive manufacturing processes; engaging suppliers, activists, and other stakeholders; measuring and reporting; and on and on. You know the drill.

And along the way, some leadership companies will establish themselves with innovative technologies and practices, smart and effective partnerships, and new business models and opportunities.

Even before that happens, customers, regulators, and activists will likely be chiming, in inquiring about what companies are doing to mitigate the risks of doing business in a world where access to water is a constraint to productivity and profits.

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