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Water

About this sector

Clean freshwater is necessary for human consumption and hygiene, for producing food and energy, for industrial production, and for ensuring healthy and vibrant ecosystems and the biodiversity they support. The number of people facing water scarcity or stress is projected to increase from one billion in 2005 to over five billion by 2050.

Impacts

  • Pollution from industrial, agricultural processes
  • Excessive water withdrawal from industrial process and mining
  • Alteration of creeks, rivers, and watershed regimes.

Opportunities/Risks

  • Companies are increasingly considering access to freshwater as a determining factor on where to locate

Case Studies


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Tools and Mechanisms


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Measuring Up: Synchronizing Biodiversity Measurement Systems for Markets and Other Incentive Programs

Measuring Up: Synchronizing Biodiversity Measurement Systems for Markets and Other Incentive Programs

http://willamettepartnership.org/measuring-up

Emerging environmental markets, in tandem with existing incentive programs, have the potential to make effective contributions to conservation, but little is known about how these programs quantify biodiversity. This report, prepared for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Office of Environmental Markets, focuses on two areas of action that could help improve effective investments for biodiversity:
  1. Standardizing systems for measuring the outcomes of current incentive programs, and
  2. Providing options for how federal agencies and others might support biodiversity incentives, particularly markets for biodiversity.
UNEP Sustainable Consumption & Production Branch

UNEP Sustainable Consumption & Production Branch

http://www.uneptie.org/scp/about/

The Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP) Branch focuses on achieving increased understanding and implementation by public and private decision makers of policies and actions for SCP. Given the breadth of the challenges and actions required to achieve SCP, activities are focused on specific tools, encompassing policies, market-based instruments, and voluntary approaches, with emphasis given to some specific economic sectors.

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