by Jaclyn Marie

Created on: November 12, 2008   Last Updated: January 05, 2009

Corporate involvement in the world water crisis is not only good for society; it's critically essential. And I am NOT talking about water ownership by companies, rather strict laws and regulations that severely and strictly limit their wasteful water uses.

Today, approximately 1.1 billion people around the world do not have access to safe drinking water. By 2025, an estimated one-third of the world's population will face severe and chronic water shortages.

It may be difficult for us in the United States to comprehend how severe a problem this is, because we don't face this problem to the degree that other countries do, but what is important to understand is that corporations play a significant role in why water shortage on a global level is occurring at such an alarming rate.

For one, water plays a major role in many of the products that society uses on a daily basis. At the Coca-Cola Company (to use a very small example) water is the main ingredient used in all of their beverage products and is essential to their manufacturing processes, such as rinsing, cleaning, heating and cooling, as stated on their website.

But Coca-Cola, while they are doing a lot to reduce their corporate water footprint, is not the only culprit. The coffee or tea that you drink every morning involves the use of water to not only make the coffee, of course, but also the cup that it comes in.

The same is true with plastic water bottles and plastic laundry containers that we use every day. They all involve the use of water to make them. Think of how many tens of thousands of gallons of water that adds up to being used every day! As citizens, we don't often think about this, because we don't see the processes that go directly into the products that we NEED on a daily basis. Companies do, and it is there responsibility to act on this.

By paying closer attention to their water footprint, companies can have a very high impact on the environment, as well as their bottom line. Solutions include reusing water, reducing wastewater, and pre-treating discharged water, steps that add up to saving billions of gallons of water a year.

So, yes, corporate involvement in the world water crisis is essential, because they are a huge part of the problem. Therefore, they should be an equally huge part of the solution. Without their help, they are copping out on a critical issue that affects us all.

The lesson to be learned here is that human activities are solely responsible for contaminating the world's limited freshwater resources, depleting our wetland ecosystems and polluting our oceans, lakes, and rivers. The sooner we take responsibility for these actions, the sooner we can start to solve the problem of the world's water crisis.

Coca-Cola stated it on their website best when they said: "The world has a finite amount of water but, if managed properly, there is enough to meet our personal, agricultural, and industrial needs, as well as those of nature."

It's not only time for companies to practice what they preach, but it's also time for the government to step up to the plate and require companies to assess their use of water, and its impact on the environment before it's too late.

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