[vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1493313822450{margin-bottom: 25px !important;background-color: #e8e8e8 !important;}”][vc_column][vc_column_text]Recognizing that terminology such as “context-based metrics,” “targets,” and other related terms can be confusing, here we provide the following working definitions of key terms: Metric: any form of quantitative or qualitative measure used to track progress at a site, whether corporate, basin level, or other levels. For example, “water efficiency” or “water withdrawal.” Target: a specific time-bound objective that sets the desired outcome at site, corporate, basin, or other levels. For example, “By 2020, a 20% increase in total water efficiency as compared to 2015,” or “By 2020, a 10% decrease in total nitrogen discharges as compared to 2017.” Local water context: according to the Alliance for Water Stewardship’s Standard,[note]Alliance for Water Stewardship (2014). The AWS International Water Stewardship Standard. Available at http://a4ws.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/AWS-Standard-Full-v-1.0-English.pdf[/note] “the social, economic, and environmental conditions of a surface or groundwater basin,” including: Surface and groundwater governance, policy, and regulation; Surface and groundwater stewardship initiatives; Physical conditions, related to water quantity and quality, environmental flows, and water-related infrastructure, including both built (gray) and natural (green) infrastructure; Social conditions, including cultural and community tradition, and social equity concerns; Economic conditions, such as water productivity, water-related employment, and income; and Future changes in social, economic, and environmental conditions. Context-based: informed by sustainable thresholds or limits of a given basin based on science; respects the basin’s environmental, economic, and social needs, and current and future conditions; and supports public sector objectives such as the SDGs. Thresholds should be informed by non-unilateral (and ideally consensus-driven) method. Efforts that strive to consider and address basin context, but that differentiate based on local conditions (e.g., citing the number of initiatives that take place in water-stressed basins), are not considered context-based for this project. Context-based water metric: a water measure used to track progress on a company’s efforts relative to the thresholds of the basin. Such metrics include both a component that speaks to performance and a component that speaks to the basin’s thresholds. Context-based water target: a specific time-bound objective that sets the desired outcome to include both a component that speaks to the company’s water performance and a component that speaks to the basin’s conditions. Context-based water targets better inform audiences on the extent to which performance respects the agreed upon thresholds of the basin or supports public policy. See Box 1 for an example. Science: For the purposes of this paper, science refers to the factual basis and knowledge covering general truths of a basin, including water demands, withdrawals, consumption, availability, quality, and accessibility, obtained and tested through the scientific method. Furthermore, the approach for setting context-based water targets, including the level of stakeholder engagement, will be developed in the next stage of this initiative.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]