Saving for not-so-rainy days
How companies are preparing for water supply shortfall
Faced with the prospect of a water supply shortfall in the future, companies are finding ways to reduce their consumption
SA’s worst drought ever recorded may be largely broken, but there is no room for complacency in a country where water scarcity remains a very real threat to economic sustainability. Hammering this home, Strategic Water Partners Network (SWPN) project manager Nick Tandi warns that without concerted action to reduce consumption, SA’s total water resources will fall 17% short of supply in just over a decade. Some major economic regions are already perilously close to slipping into a supply deficit, including the Johannesburg metropolitan area, which relies on the upper Vaal River for its water. "Already 98% of available water is being used and at the current rate of demand growth there will be a 31% supply deficit by 2030," says Tandi. Water supply shortfalls are a threat that brought companies and the department of water affairs together in 2011 to form the SWPN. The network now has 20 core corporate members, including Coca-Cola SA, Woolworths, Nestlé, SA Breweries (SAB) and Sasol, sa...
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