Industrial leaders expect water shortages to threaten growth within five years

Water now poses one of the greatest risks to business continuity for industrial companies in Europe and the United Kingdom. It is rated just as highly as cyber-attacks and supply chain disruptions. This is revealed in ‘The Water Crunch Report’ by technology firm Schneider Electric, a leader in energy management and industrial automation. The findings are consistent with research carried out by Schneider Electric in the US last year. That study revealed that more than half (56%) of business leaders expect water-related risks to increase more rapidly than other infrastructure risks in the coming years.

For ‘The Water Crunch Report’, senior leaders from industrial companies and decision-makers at water companies and local authorities across Europe were surveyed. Industrial leaders indicate that the increasing pressure on water supplies has already led, over the past two years, to higher operational costs (44%), additional pressure on infrastructure and maintenance budgets (38%) and disruptions to supply chains (30%).

If the water supply were to be severely disrupted tomorrow, 44 per cent of companies expect their operations to be affected within 24 hours. On average, more than half (52%) of industrial leaders expect the quality or availability of water to pose a serious obstacle to their organisation’s growth within five years – that is, by 2031 at the latest. One in seven leaders (14%) even say that this is already the case.

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