by Lisa Pearce

Created on: February 11, 2009

This important question is really three fundamental questions.

Firstly, CAN individuals make a significant difference to the world water crisis? My first attempt at finding an answer yielded a despondent no', in agreement with popular sentiments. Logic seems to suggest that the big polluters are large industries; that climate change is too vast for any one individual to reverse. If one reads the

accounts of experts in Water and listens to the tragedies of whole countries staggering under the ravages of drought, it seems inconceivable that one person closing the tap while brushing their teeth could ease even a fraction of the crisis.

Or so I thought. An interesting book by Joel Bakan, The Corporation, makes the statement that corporations are much like individuals: the Corporation acts like a person, responds like a person and makes decisions like a person. Bakan argues that one can't accuse a corporation of being guilty of pollution, but not the Board Members in their personal capacity. He explains that people make decisions for the good of the corporation, even if they don't agree with the morals of a decision personally, because their loyalty must be to the corporation. If that is true, then whatever is good for the corporation and its shareholders will guide the Board's decisions. And herein lies the answer:

Common economic wisdom says that the bottom line is paramount. Especially now in the global economic recession as industries and companies are cutting costs to try and ride out the trouble. Yet the corporate world has widely embraced the principles of the King Report on Corporate Governance (the King II report) the so-called triple bottom line: social, environmental and economic bottom line. In other words, what's good for a company or corporation is not only its' net profit, but also the health of the communities and environment in which it exists and on which it relies for resources, work force and public good will. King III is about to be released and is expected to address climate change specifically.

Following this line of reasoning it becomes clear that an individual in fact has great power to ease the world water crisis: an individual on a Board of Directors can guide corporate decisions toward sustainability and cause the corporation, industry or company to be mindful of it's impact on regional and global water sources. A CEO taking a stand to implement cleaner production technology in his company can change the course of events dramatically. Success stories

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