Nature to the Rescue: How nature-based solutions move corporate water risk management beyond BAU

This paper explores the evolution of water risk management practices amongst the surveyed companies and offers an outlook on promising strategies as to how businesses should continue to manage or adapt to pressing water challenges.

This paper provides groundbreaking quantitative evidence on how businesses are currently responding to water-related risks. To understand how they are managing water-related business risks, South Pole analysed the facility-level response strategies of 49 companies from three sectors (food, beverage, and metals & mining). They reported their risk responses through CDP over the last three years (2015, 2016 and 2017). We assessed:

• To what extent businesses apply beyond-the-fence (BTF) and inside-the-fence (ITF) actions – in other words, actions focused on water resources that were both beyond and within the direct control of the business.
• The most common action they take within the ITF and BTF response types.
• The median costs of ITF and BTF responses.