The Finnish water stewardship commitment

Companies and their value chains are among the largest water users in the world. Global water challenges like water scarcity and pollution pose growing risks to business, but companies may also have a central role in solving them.<br />
Even though the state of water resources in Finland and the state of water management and governance are predominantly good, Finnish companies operate and their value chains extend also to areas suffering from different kinds of water related problems.<br />
The water stewardship commitment challenges Finnish companies and organizations to assess water risks in their value chains, to take care of sustainability of water use at their own and their value chains’ operation locations, and to engage in collective action with stakeholders to develop sustainable water use and governance. <br />
Water stewardship means water use that is socially equitable, environmentally sustainable and economically beneficial, achieved through a stakeholder-inclusive process that includes both site- and catchment-based actions. Stewardship is about taking care of something one doesn’t own and built on continuous improvement. <br />
The Commitment draws together the best tools and international guidelines for five steps of water stewardship progression: <br />
1. water risk assessment<br />
2. water strategy development<br />
3. water impact assessment and mitigation<br />
4. collective action<br />
5. monitoring, evaluation and reporting <br />
The commitment is supportive of the UN Global Compact CEO Water Mandate -initiative and the Business Alliance for Water and Climate –commitment. What makes it unique internationally is that the commitment is part of the Society&#39;s Commitment to Sustainable Development, which is the national framework and key instrument for implementing the UN Agenda 2030 in Finland. <br />
With the help of the commitment, companies can manage their water risks in a systematic manner and ensure their water use and water related actions are aligned with the UN SDGs. Water stewardship action is especially relevant for Goal 6, which aims to ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all. Water stewardship is connected to all the goals, however, including promoting inclusive and sustainable industrialization and fostering innovations (Goal 9) and responsible consumption and production (Goal 12). It is a pre-requisite for food security (Goal 2) and climate change mitigation and adaptation (Goal 13) and it affects the state of water and land ecosystems alike (Goals 14 and 15). Above all, water stewardship is built on collaboration and partnerships (Goal 17). <br />
The commitment was founded by Aalto University, Natural Resources Institute Finland, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Ministry of the Environment and WWF Finland in 2017 and is supported by Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Five major Finnish companies and two industry associations have signed the commitment to date and it is gaining growing interest.