Alexis Morgan, Water Stewardship Specialist at WWF International will join the Corporate Water Panel at BlueTech Forum in San Francisco on 1 June. The panel will debate the question – Can innovation mitigate corporate water risk and deliver value?
Alexis recently spoke with O2 Environmental Chief Executive Paul O’Callaghan on why WWF is taking part in BlueTech Forum and how they work with corporates on water.
Key takeaways from the interview with Alexis include:
“We need to start thinking about industrial ecology; an ecosystem of businesses, so one company’s waste becomes another’s resource input. You might have a wastewater treatment facility; if it has biosolids, it has phosphorus and nitrogen that can become a resource.”
“WWF has actually got a long history of working with leading companies in different markets, like Coca Cola, IKEA, H&M, even HSBC. On water, that often starts with a discussion around a company’s operations or supply chain and the risks for the company so they are not left with stranded assets.”
“Once you have identified the shared water challenges there is a real opportunity to bring in innovators, entrepreneurs and venture capital players. That is where it gets to be really exciting because once you can talk about a US$300million investment rather than a U$3 million investment, from an impact perspective, there are some really exciting opportunities.”
“The value of water touches assets, liabilities, revenue and cost factors within operations. It is much more significant in terms of its financial impacts than the price of water, which is what people often talk about.”
“WWF has been heavily engaged in the use of a standard system called the Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS), which is a market-based standard system not dissimilar to Fairtrade, but focused on water.”
Other speakers on the Corporate Water panel include Emilio Tenuta, Vice President Sustainability, Ecolab and Kirsten James, Senior Manager, California Policy and Partnerships CERES Inc.
We are also delighted to announce that Opti will join the Innovation Showcase at BlueTech Forum. Opti’s technology is an innovative stormwater analytics software tool.
Take a look at the agenda and register today to secure a place.
