Group 7_B | SDG 6 Clean Water and Sanitation

Introduction

Clean water supply and proper sanitation are fundamental essentials that impact the overall health, hygiene, and life expectancy of people. Even after the criticality, ensuring society has access to these necessities still proves to be a challenge in many parts of the world. Access to safe and clean water has a cascading impact much further than just hygiene. Better hygiene ensures a reduction in poverty as the money currently spent on health issues can be rerouted to provide for jobs and thus creating a sustainable ecosystem. Nearly 33% of the world population (2.5 billion people) do not have access to adequate sanitation. Improper sanitation can lead to many diseases like diarrhea, especially in children, and nearly 1.7 billion children report diarrhea every year and it is the main reason for malnutrition among children below five years. Diarrhea is the second highest cause of the death of children below five years and a significant reason for diarrhea is the lack of proper sanitation.

Ensuring a clean water supply poses a challenge for the governments as there are limited water resources in a country and it has to be used for both industrial as well as agricultural purposes. According to numerous studies, nearly thirty percent of people are facing issues to get safely managed drinking water. The businesses typically use almost twenty percent of water for their daily operations and the other seventy percentage goes for agrarian purposes. A lot of cities around the world, including cape town in South Africa, have had to announce a “day zero” where the local government has informed the citizens that it cannot provide water to the city. Due to complete dependence on water, many companies have been forced to contribute towards preserving water and treating the water from their plants for other uses. Water supply and sanitation are intertwined with each other and we can ensure higher availability of water by improving the sanitation systems. Therefore, the government should be responsible and have the foresight to start looking at these challenges as a one unified problem rather than viewing them as two different problems and start implementing solutions to tackle them.

The relevance of Clean Water and Sanitation SDG in India

The Indian population has seen significant growth in the number of households with access to clean drinking water. The number grew from 68% in the early 1990s to 90% in 2016. However, sanitation in India is a completely different story. 63.3% of rural households and 19.7% of urban households still do not have access to basic sanitation facilities. Around 520 million Indians still defecate in the open, the largest number in the world. Over a few years, the Indian government has launched several programmes like Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and National Rural Drinking Water Programme are aimed at improving sanitation facilities across the country (especially in rural areas).

Why is Clean Water and Sanitation important in India?

· Estimates suggest that access to proper and clean sanitation in India would save nearly 2,00,000 lives a year who die due to diarrhea.

· Lack of sanitation and access to clean water stunts children’s growth (both physical and cognitive) which leads to an ineffective workforce and huge economic losses for the country.

· A World Bank study showed that lack of sanitation leads to a 7% loss in GDP annually.

Despite the measurable success towards achieving the goals of SGD-6, the Indian government has had to grapple with many issues: the sheer size of the Indian population and its diversity makes it hard to secure clean water and sanitation for all & concerns have been raised about chemical contamination of many water body sources used by the government. Furthermore, the sustainability of water sources has been questionable: the government has on multiple occasions developed efficient schemes only to find out that the source has dried up and is no longer usable.

Business Implications

“Water is everybody’s business.” -World Water Week 2018 report.

SDG goal 6 focuses on clean water and sanitation, and it aims to “ensure the availability & management of sanitation and water facilities for everyone in a sustainable way” by the year 2030. It focuses on encouraging the participation of local communities in developing communities. The goal is divided into eight targets and 11 indicators such as

drinking water
water quality
sanitation and hygiene
water use efficiency
water management
water-related ecosystems

In order to achieve SDG goal 6, business support is critical in addition to inter-governmental efforts. Businesses must confront the issues now and act on them or face increasing roadblocks in the future. As per research by the World Economic Forum (WEF), water crises have ranked within the top three global risk and impact businesses. More than two- thirds of the world’s largest companies have reported risk to water shortage and sanitation (CDP)

Impact on businesses:

Unavailability of resources: Water is a strategic resource for many companies. Shortage of clean water and unsanitary conditions can lead to increased costs to procure water from alternative sources. Such companies include food and beverage manufacturers, paper and pulp companies, refining and mining plants, electronics manufacturers. (2) They need an uninterrupted supply of water for processing and have intensive water usage for their operations. Businesses might also have to relocate their operations to a more suitable location to avoid interruption or slowdown.

Public relations issues: Companies sometimes compete directly with the local community for clean water supply in the area. If the resource is already scarce (such as groundwater level), the company can face a significant public relations risk. Brands face a reputational risk as the public is aware of the unsustainable water use by many companies.

Regulation risk- Several countries impose regulations on the use of water. Licensing and allocations of water usage are necessary to protect scarce water resources. Companies are required to follow state laws related to water conservation and stewardship. Dumping industrial waste into water bodies or polluting groundwater levels due to seepage of industrial pollutants invites hefty fines.

Labour force impact: Sanitation and scarcity of drinkable water lead to 432,000 deaths each year. Poor hygienic conditions have a direct impact on the workforce and business efficiency. Poor sanitation has reduced human well being and hence economic development. (3)

Business Response

Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), the sixth sustainable development goal, has massive implications on millions of people's lives. The triggering facts such as i) One in nine people in the world do not have clean water close to their house and have to walk for more than half an hour to get a few buckets. ii) Every third person in the world is deprived of the basic necessity of a clean and decent toilet. Such prompting facts make this goal not the responsibility of just the governments across the globe but also prompt businesses to become a part of the solution to take up on this challenge and contribute towards this cause.

Business operations and manufacturing units are often set up in areas where people are most seriously affected by the lack of WASH. The corporations by making it their core responsibility to extend help will be socially beneficial, but there are quantifiable benefits for the business. Good facilities mean lower work absenteeism, healthier workforce leading to higher productivity and increased employee loyalty towards the company.

Examples of companies' wash policies and commitments

1) Nestle is committed to raising global awareness of water conservation and improving access to clean water and sanitation across its value chain to safeguard fundamental human rights. All Nestle manufacturing units are committed to providing WASH services to employees. By 2020, their efforts cumulated into benefitting over six lakh community members around their project facilities worldwide.

2) H&M is upholding its sustainability commitment for business partners by ensuring that the requirements outlined in the pledge are followed in their supply chains. The company swears by the goal of providing all essential services for a safe and healthy working environment for the employees.

3) Uniliver has integrated the WASH objective within their workplace and manufacturing facilities. They provide access to WASH for external suppliers through individual certification and support Agriculture Sustainability Code.

Analysis

One key component of this SDG was a resolve by the countries of the world to ensure availability of drinking water and adequate sanitation and hygiene for all by 2030. However, India faces several natural roadblocks. Firstly, India contains 18% of the total population of the world, but only 4% of the average global runoff from rivers. Secondly, over 600 million people in India depend on agriculture as a livelihood, and nearly two-thirds of that land has no assisted irrigation. As a result, water is pumped out from underground water sources. Subsidized electricity has led to excessive pumping of water as well, which is one of the key reasons why the water table is falling by 0.3 meters annually, on average. Again, the consequences of the lack of clean drinking water and sanitation facilities are severe, with 102813 children dying due to severe diarrhea in India, about one-fifth of the total number of child deaths.

India has made some progress in achieving the goals of this SDG so far. The UN's Sustainable Development Report of 2020 gives India an index score of 61.9 with a global rank of 117. However, the report also mentions that India is on track to fulfill the goals of SDG-6, even though there are significant challenges lying ahead. Some of the key improvements have happened in terms of access to sanitation through the Swacch Bharat Abhiyan of the Government of India. India was declared 100% free of open defecation in 2020. The realistic figure pegged by independent analysts is around 90%, but that is still a significant feat since it was only about 60% in 2015. Piped water supply coverage in India was approximately 50% in 2017, with an ambitious figure of 90% set as a target for 2022. Steps have been taken to reduce the contamination of water by arsenic and fluoride, which are the two main threats to a decent water quality. Installation of canal systems seems to be the accepted long term solution in this regard. There is an ongoing effort to increase water efficiency in agriculture by 20%, with farming making up 70% of India's total water usage. Micro-irrigation sprinklers and drip irrigation are being increasingly adopted as well. Special steps have also been taken to fulfill water requirements of water-scarce states like Gujarat, mostly by using a network of pipelines to bring in water.

Suggested Path Ahead

Ensuring the sustainable management and availability of clean water and sanitation for all has been a long-time goal for the United Nations. Their priority is turning the new vision of water-related SDGs of the ‘2030 Agenda’ into a reality. This would require a combination of national leadership and global partnership.[1]

As per ‘The Global Water Partnership’[2], the water crisis is essentially one that of poor governance. Governments have traditionally taken a fragmented approach to manage water and sanitation. Thus, in order to achieve the SDG goal, the following can be implemented:

• Using a singular mutual accountability platform that is informational and built around a multi-stakeholder, government-led cycle of planning, monitoring, and learning.

• Building sustainable financing strategies that incorporate data on taxes, tariffs, and transfers to improve accountability and produce better results.

• Using participatory, bottom-up processes, instead of top-down, centralized decision-making. The planning processes must also be iterative rather than linear. For example- The Municipal Department of Water and Sewerage in Porto Alegre has a progressive tariff that generates a surplus of 5–15 percent annually. Citizens use to vote on how to use this surplus.[3]

• Regulation, licensing, and disposal must be a prerogative for the public sector. Regulators must monitor performance against benchmarks and instill competitive pressure to comply with higher performance standards.

• Better use of existing domestic resources and stronger finances will be required to achieve the goal of leaving no one behind.

• Capacity development is essential for improving service levels and monitoring performance.

• Smart technologies can also be employed to improve management and service delivery.

The challenge of the provision of clean water and sanitation cannot be addressed in isolation. In the face of inequalities, marginalized communities and disadvantaged groups do not get equal access to water and sanitation and they are more vulnerable to the impacts of pollution.[4] Reduction of poverty and economic growth are therefore goals that must go hand in hand to ensure the success of this SDG.

References

• https://www.zurichna.com/-/media/project/zwp/zna/docs/kh/watershortage/water-shortage-poses-global-risk.pdf?la=en

• https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/water-scarcity-challenges-to-business/

• https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/sanitation#:~:text=Poor%20sanitation%20is%20linked%20to,assault%2C%20and%20lost%20educational%20opportunities.

• Sustainable Development Report 2020 (sdgindex.org)

• SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation (un.org)

• Report_SDG-6_v1.pdf (niti.gov.in)

• Tracking India's Progress in Clean Water and Sanitation: A Sub-National Analysis | ORF (orfonline.org)

• https://www.wbcsd.org/Programs/Food-and-Nature/Water/Water-stewardship/WASH-access-to-water-sanitation-and-hygiene/News/Business-leadership-on-water-sanitation-and-hygiene-WBCSD-launches-WASH-Pledge-impact-report

• https://ceowatermandate.org/resources/

• https://www.gwp.org/globalassets/global/toolbox/ publications/background-papers/04-integrated-waterresources-management-2000-english.pdf

• https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/hlpf