UN Corporate Water Disclosure Guidelines
The UN Global Compact’s CEO Water Mandate initiative announced the release of its Corporate Water Disclosure Guidelines providing a common approach to corporate water disclosure.
Corporate water disclosure involves
- Collecting data on the current state of a company’s water management
- Assessing the implications of this information for the business, developing a strategic response
- Reporting this information to stakeholders
The new Corporate Water Disclosure Guidelines offer a common approach to disclosure, putting forward metrics that can begin to harmonize practice and also providing guidance to help companies define report content.
The Corporate Water Disclosure Framework builds on three areas:
- Company Water Profile – an overview of the company’s relationship with water resources, offering a snapshot of water performance, risks, impacts, and response strategies that nontechnical audiences can easily understand.
- Defining Report Content – a description of the process by which a company determines which water-related content to include in its report. The company assesses the significance of different water topics to the company and its stakeholders, and the extent to which those topics cause, or may in the future cause, adverse impacts to ecosystems and communities.
- Detailed Disclosure – specific, detailed metrics and qualitative information related to the company’s water management as well as to the specific water management programs and projects it implements.