Water: a resource under pressure
A vital yet overlooked resource
Water is everywhere in the economy: irrigation, industrial processes, data center cooling, cleaning, catering, maintenance… Yet its role is still widely underestimated. As a vital and limited resource, water is now at the heart of tensions linked to climate change and human pressures.
Competing uses and water stress: a business challenge
Prolonged droughts, pollution, and soil artificialization are intensifying pressures on water. Resource availability varies significantly across regions, increasing competition between agriculture, industry, municipalities, and domestic needs.
One cubic meter of water consumed here or elsewhere does not have the same value or impact. That is why companies are increasingly scrutinized for their water consumption, especially when operating in areas of high water stress.
A dual relationship: dependence and impact
Companies are both:
- Dependent: without water, no production, no cooling, no cleaning. Shortages or usage restrictions pose strategic risks: entire sites and business operations can be affected.
- Impactful: excessive withdrawals, discharges, pollution, and environmental degradation further weaken this critical resource.
This dual relationship makes water a central issue for resilience and social acceptability across the economy.
CSRD, SBTN, and water footprint: key frameworks
Water is now embedded in several strategic and regulatory frameworks:
- CSRD: with the ESRS E3 standard “Water and Marine Resources,” which requires detailed reporting of dependencies, impacts, risks, and opportunities related to water.
- SBTN Water target: (Science Based Targets for Nature), providing a framework to set measurable and credible goals to reduce pressures and enhance resilience.
- Water footprint methodologies: which assess volumes consumed, quality of discharged water, and the location of pressures.
From water diagnosis to strategic action
We help you connect these frameworks and tools to your operational reality:
- Identify your key dependencies and impacts.
- Understand strategic risks related to location and site operations.
- Build action plans aligned with your obligations (CSRD), ambitions (SBTN), and stakeholders.
Ready to integrate water into your CSRD reporting and SBTN objectives?
With Blooming, identify your dependencies, reduce your impacts, and strengthen your resilience.