Primary Functions
- Access actionable information to help businesses understand and quantify water-related risks in financial terms.
Detailed Description
The relatively low price of water often means the risks associated with its use are overlooked. The Water Risk Monetizer helps you assess water-related business risks to understand the gap between what your business pays for water and the potential costs of water risks to your business.
The Water Risk Monetizer was launched in 2014 and developed by Ecolab, a global leader in water technologies and services; Trucost, part of S&P Dow Jones Indices, a global leader in valuing natural capital; and Microsoft, the leading platform and productivity company for the mobile-first, cloud-first world. Through this collaboration, the tool leverages industry insights, advanced analytics and Azure Cloud technology to help business leaders easily access information to better understand the impacts of water scarcity.
By assessing the impact of declining water quantity and quality on operations, the Water Risk Monetizer provides actionable information to help companies turn water risks into business strategies that enable growth.
The Water Risk Monetizer can help businesses:
- Understand the full value of water to an operation
- Make the case for proactive water management strategies by utilizing risk-adjusted costs to demonstrate potential risk-based return on investment compared to conventional modeling using only market water costs water-related risks and the impact of water scarcity to their business
- Identify locations of greatest risk based on quantity and quality risks and growth projections
- Prioritize water conservation and reuse investments based on site-specific water risks
- Support development of a successful corporate water strategy
The Water Risk Monetizer estimates the value of water scarcity (availability and quality) in monetary terms. It looks at the amount of water available at a specific location, the amount of water used/needed by a facility, additional demands on the supply of water and the impact of a facility’s water use on the watershed. The result is a water risk premium that quantifies the full value of water scarcity to a facility in monetary terms. Best-in-class local water basin datasets, economic techniques and scientific methodologies developed by Trucost enable businesses to monetize water-related business risks. The tool provides a comprehensive series of risk metrics to help businesses understand incoming (quantity and quality) risks and outgoing (quality) risks:
- Incoming water risks: monetary value of the impacts of water use on human health and ecosystems and the future costs of incoming water treatment
- Outgoing water risk: monetary value of the impacts of outgoing water pollution on human health and ecosystems and the future costs of water treatment
- Potential revenue at risk: monetary value of the impacts of water use versus availability based on water required to do business
- Enterprise risk profile: assessment of each facility’s risk based on three-year projected output growth and location-specific water stress
The tool is designed for use by a range of business decision makers, including:
- Business site decision makers (corporate level) – individuals and teams setting enterprise business strategy (supply chain, operations, quality, engineering, sustainability)
- Facility and operations managers (site level) – individuals and teams responsible for improving performance at the site level
- Business consultants and third-party experts helping to shape corporate strategy and decision making
- Nongovernmental organizations – organizations influencing global water stewardship practices
The Water Risk Monetizer can be used to help businesses better understand water risks and the potential cost implications of water scarcity at a facility. The data provides valuable information to help assess different business models, determine how water costs or scarcity may affect growth plans and help inform business decisions.
To view a list of the expert advisory group members, please see page 2 of the WRM methodology paper.
To see how Microsoft leveraged the Water Risk Monetizer, please see the case study available here.
