Group9_B | SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation
"We
shall not defeat any of the infectious diseases that plague the developing
world until we have also won the battle for safe drinking water, sanitation,
and basic health care."-Kofi Annan
According to UN: "Clean water is a basic
human need and should be easily accessible to all. There is sufficient fresh
water for all on the planet Earth to achieve this. However, due to the poor
infrastructure, investment & planning, every year thousands and millions of
people and most of them children — die from the diseases associated with
sanitation, inadequate water supply and hygiene."
Out of the 17 sustainable development goals
run by the UN, the goal of clean water and sanitation is identified as SDG 6.
UN has identified eight goals and 11 indicators for SDG 6 to measure the
success of the accomplishment of the goal.
Target 6.1: Safe &
affordable drinking water
This target tells us about the proportion of
people using drinking water supplies that are safely managed. According to the
report released by UNDP in 2015, 844 million people still lacked basic drinking
water. Nearly 1,000 children die per day due to preventable diarrheal diseases
associated with water and sanitation.
Target 6.2: End open
defecation & provide access to hygiene and sanitation
This target talks about the population
proportion using safe sanitation and soap & water hand-washing facility. In
2015 about 2.3 billion people still lacked basic sanitation. 3 in 10
individuals lack access to clean drinking water systems, and 6 in 10
individuals lack access to safe sanitation facilities.
Target 6.3: Improve
the quality of water, wastewater treatment & safe reuse
Target 6.3 talks about the proportion of the
wastewater treated safely and adequately across the globe. According to a UN
report till 2015, about 80% of the wastewater went into freshwater bodies
without proper and adequate treatment.
Target 6.4: Increase
water use efficiency & ensure freshwater supplies
Water efficiency is calculated as a
productivity metric, given by dividing the gross domestic product (GDP) of a
country by total freshwater withdrawals. As per a UNDP report of 2015, about
two billion people were affected by water stress.
Target 6.5: Integrated
water resources management
The status of national production and
implementation of Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) plans around the
world is measured by this metric.
Target 6.6: Protect
& restore water-related ecosystems
This target measures the change in the
ecosystems related to water over time. Currently, over 1.7 billion people live
in river basins where water use exceeds refueling. 70% of all deaths related to
natural disasters are attributed to flooding and other water-related disasters.
The Indian Scenario
With approximately more than 50% of the
population living in suburban communities, India is one of the most densely
populated countries in the world. People in India have limited access to
sanitation and hygiene because of the country's vast population growth and its
limited accessibility to water. More than 520 million people in India defecates
in the open, according to the World Bank, the highest number in the world.
Annually as a result of unsanitary conditions and dirty water, 117,000 children
younger than five pass away due to diarrhea.
In India, a nation whose population has
approximately doubled to 1.35 billion in the last 40 years, rivers and streams
have borne the brunt of the recent urban explosion. The usage of water bodies
as dumping grounds for sewage and industrial waste has resulted in unplanned
development. 63 percent of the urban waste flowing into rivers (approximately
62 billion liters a day) is untreated, according to India's Central Pollution
Control Board.
Both surface and groundwater assets are under
stress in India. One of the reasons is the significant rise in the number of
grossly polluting industries (GPI). According to a report of State of India's
Environment (SoE) Estimates, 2019, there was a 136% increase in the number of
grossly polluting industries over the year. GPIs are sectors that discharge
more than 1,00,000 litres of waste water and/or toxic chemicals, including pulp
and paper mills, textile units, tanneries, distilleries, sugar mills etc. into
rivers.
Business Implications and Responses
Businesses often
overlook the impact of their activities and how it affects large swathes of
society. Hyderabad is one of India's largest metropolitan regions, home to
India's pharmaceutical cluster specializing in generic medicine manufacturing.
However, the city's rapid development without planning led to the spawning of
multiple drug manufacturing units that dumped hazardous chemicals and
bio-medical waste into Hyderabad's freshwater lakes. Known by the moniker 'City
of Lakes,' their number has reduced to less than half of what it was in 1970,
with many reporting high levels of dead fish, drug-resistant bacteria, and toxic
foam. The highest ever recorded level of fluconazole, an anti-fungal biomedical
component, was recorded in one of the city's lakes with over 60,000 dead fish.
We can see another
example of clean water and sanitation not handled with due sincerity in the
national capital, New Delhi's famous 'Mountain of Garbage' in Ghazipur. Delhi's
growing population, increasing industrial power, and government and corporates'
inadequate action has contributed to the massive 65 meters high dump on the
Ghazipur landfill site. The landfill commissioned initially in 1984 has been
overflowing since 2002, however, waste keeps arriving at the site and piling
up. The urban agglomeration of the NCR also scores low on the clean water
quality front.
A similar example can
be seen in the city of Vapi, in Gujarat, home to approximately 200-300 medium
to small scale chemical manufacturing industries. Vapi came to focus when it
was declared critically polluted in 1989 and again in 2010. Open dumping of
industrial runoff into Bill Khadi, a canal for the Kolak River flowing through
Vapi meant to collect domestic waste during the night, has created an
unsustainable situation.
It is now high time
for businesses to realize the impact of their actions and inadequacy in
controlling them and their impact on the environment and society. Over the past
decade, businesses in India have steadily embraced the notion of sustainability
as an intrinsic part of the corporate agenda. Companies have widely
acknowledged that shelling out money on sustainability is an investment and not
a cost. Organizations like Standard Chartered are running several
campaigns to instill water conservation behavior in their employees. They have
managed to reduce their annual target of water consumption from 1.125
kiloliters per square meter of the building area in 2014 to 0.5 kiloliter in
2019. Goldman Sach’s Sustainable Water Impact Fund (SWIF) invests in companies
that focusses on groundwater and surface water preservation. Perfetti Van Melle targets reducing their
water consumption by 25 percent in the next four years by implementing process
optimization and recycling wastewater. Multinational banks like Citi have built a $100 Billion Environmental
Finance Goal and uses Water Quality and Conservation as one of the six
environmental criteria while selecting investment projects. Pharmaceutical
companies like Cipla have
collaborated with the government to provide better sanitation infrastructure in
government-run schools around their factories and campuses. Despite billions of
dollars being spent in the name of sustainability, a clear corporate strategy
is required as we move forward into the fourth industrial revolution.
Analysis
If we are to solve this grave problem, dedicated efforts need to be made
to better the situation by all three stakeholders – Corporates, Governments
around the world and Individuals.
Role of Corporates
The crisis surrounding water gives corporates an opportunity to adopt
principals of responsible citizenship. However, we all know that the biggest
incentive a company can get is if it believes that the actions it takes will
increase its profits or prevent them from being adversely impacted in the
future.
From an Indian perspective, around 60% of the Nifty 50 companies are
engaged in water intensive industries and 65% of these companies have their
operations in regions which are water stressed. With regulations regarding
water use expected to become more stringent, by investing in sustainable water
practices these companies can not only become pioneers of sustainability in the
eyes of their customers, but they can also be pro-active in their approach to
mitigate potential risks.
Corporates usually take environmentally conscious actions motivated by
three key reasons – CSR, Sustainability and Shared Value. The
Companies Act 2013 has played a significant role in increasing CSR spends by
corporates and a lot of it has flown to actions related to water as well. Approximately
12% of all the CSR spending by Nifty 50 companies were on water related
projects due to the impact it has on increasing agricultural income, addressing
health issues and mitigating future challenges. A corporate may also take water
related initiatives to ensure the sustainability of its practices – in other
words to balance some of its operations which have adverse impacts on water. Shared
Value projects are taken up with the dual objective of helping the society as
well as increasing profits. These are expected to increase as clean water
starts getting scarcer day by day. When it comes to sanitation, CSR initiatives
are the biggest drivers since they do not have additional benefits like water
does.
Role of Government
The Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation was restructured under
which its mandate became one of the two pillars under a new ministry called Jal
Shakti. UNICEF has played a pivotal role in refurbishing and implementing
the Indian Government’s flagship National Rural Drinking Water Programme. Under
UNICEF’s continued technical support, engagement and advocacy with the Ministry
of Jal Shakti, clean water and sanitation emerged to be a top agenda of the Indian
Government. Jal Shakti Abhiyan and Jal Jeevan Abhiyan are the two
campaigns launched in 2019 by Ministry of Jal Shakti with the focus on
water-stressed districts and blocks. Jal Shakti Abhiyan covered around 256
districts across the country. Currently the Ministry of Jal Shakti launched
“Swajal” as a pilot project which is aimed at providing adequate access to
drinking water to the rural population.
Recently, a ten-year Rural Sanitation Strategy was launched by the
Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation. It lays down a framework for
guiding policy makers, local governments and other stakeholders in the planning
of Open Defecation Free (ODF) Plus status, where every village has an
access to solid and liquid waste management and everyone uses toilets.
Role of Individuals
In order to bring wholesome changes, we need a paradigm shift in the mindset of each person as well. Water needs to be seen and treated as a precious commodity; an essential component of our existence. Becoming cognizant of our water usage and regulating ourselves can go a long way in helping us conserve water. Individuals who are in a position to bring about a change need to exercise every available opportunity to do so. Only then can we think of making the situation better for our future selves and our future generations as well.
The Way Forward
ü Know our Water Resources: The Government can leverage tools like the Niti
Aayog Composite Water Management Index for identifying areas to make water
interventions & regulations to allocate water across various sectors
effectively
ü Water Banks: Ensure corporates above a certain threshold of water
usage set up water banks (may be under PPP model) and make it mandatory that a
minimum percentage of their water consumption is met through these in-house
water banks
ü Establishing Limits: It can set up a maximum sustainable limit for water
consumption and water pollution in water bodies and aquifers which can be
defined through measuring water availability and water assimilation capacity of
river bodies.
ü Water Footprint Benchmarks: They can also look forward to establishing Water
footprint benchmarks for producers by utilizing technologies and best practices
to improve resource efficiency.
ü Setting up Expert Groups: Government can setup an expert group or a task force
to collaborate with organizations, NGOs, legal activists and public health
organizations to mediate and mitigate the problem of industrial waste which is
a major cause of water pollution.
ü Inform & Involve Public in Sanitation: Increase awareness among the people by celebrating
days like ‘World Toilet Day’ in schools and colleges to promote hygiene and
sanitation from an early age
References
[1]
https://www.unicef.org/india/what-we-do/clean-drinking-water
[3]
https://ourworldindata.org/water-access
[4]
https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/19901SDG6_SR2018_web_3.pdf
[5]
https://www.cipla.com/sites/default/files/2020-08/CIpla-AR-2019-20.pdf
[8]
https://www.perfettivanmelle.com/being-responsible/our-priorities/environmental-protection/
Comments
Post a Comment