What is Water Security and How Does it Impact the Packaging Industry?

When discussing sustainability, plenty of people put sole focus on the “Three R’s of the environment” – reduce, reuse, recycle. However, while those are essential to environmental conservation, they are far from the only important aspects of sustainability. Water is a key sustainability factor and is becoming more important as time goes on. The World Economic Forum identified water insecurity as one of the top economic threats in recent Global Risk Reports. With this in mind, it is important for businesses to understand the impact of water on their long-term performance and viability.

The Sustainable Water Partnership defines water security as “the adaptive capacity to safeguard the sustainable availability of, access to, and safe use of an adequate, reliable and resilient quantity and quality of water for health, livelihoods, ecosystems, and productive economies.” The importance lies not only in quantity but in the quality and consistency of the water source.

Water is a shared resource, and activity that impacts the availability or quality of local water resources, positively or negatively, often garners a lot of attention. How a company impacts water resources in the communities in which it operates will only become more important in the public discourse in coming years. This can pose risk for a company, but also considerable opportunity.

The paper industry has been a leader in sustainable water use in manufacturing for many years. Water reduction and reuse strategies have been widely implemented across the industry and many opportunities for water use efficiencies have been realized. The industry is now shifting toward water sustainability actions that utilize partnerships in the value chain to minimize impacts on water resources.  Source: gbp.com

什麼是水安全？它如何影響包裝產業？在討論永續性時，許多人只關注「環境的三個原則」——減少使用、重複使用、再循環。然而，雖然這些原則對環境保護至關重要，但它們遠非永續性的唯一重要方面。水是永續發展的關鍵因素，並且隨著時間的推移變得越來越重要。世界經濟論壇在最近的《全球風險報告》中將水資源不安全列為最大的經濟威脅之一。因此，企業必須了解水對其長期業績和生存能力的影響。

永續水夥伴關係將水安全定義為「為健康、生計、生態系統和生產性經濟提供充足、可靠和有韌性的水資源，以可持續的方式獲得、獲取和安全使用」。水安全的重要性不僅在於數量，還在於水源的品質和一致性。

水是一種共享資源，任何對當地水資源可用性或品質有正面或負面影響的活動，往往都會引起廣泛關注。未來幾年，企業如何影響其營運所在社區的水資源，在公眾討論中將變得越來越重要。這可能會為企業帶來風險，但也蘊藏著巨大的機會。

多年來，造紙業一直是製造業永續用水的領導者。節水和再利用策略已在整個行業中廣泛實施，並實現了許多提高用水效率的機會。目前，該產業正轉向水資源永續行動，利用價值鏈中的合作夥伴關係，最大限度地減少對水資源的影響。