Today’s the World Water Day. A day introduced by the UN, intended to have us all spend a little time thinking about water. And the fundamental crisis connected to water many places around the world. In previous posts, I’ve touched upon the fact that 663 million people on a global scale live without a safe water supply close to home. A severe and thought provoking fact, which is sought solved by 2030 as per the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal number 6.
The challenges in achieving this ambitious and important target are tangible. Another worrying fact, I’ve come across is that 1.6 billion people are actually living in areas, where the water infrastructure itself is in too bad a shape to actually use the water resources available.
It is not only in regards of drinking water, we are facing issues. 2.4 billion people worldwide are without access to sanitation, and on a global scale, less than half of all wastewater is collected, and out of this, less than one fifth is treated.
Why bring these facts up today? Well, because the real purpose of today is not only giving thought to water. It is about finding out how to take action on solving the issues. This fits perfectly in to my personal views and to the values of the company, I’m the CEO of. Because, in all modesty, we are trying to act and solve the issues we’re facing.
On the technological side, we have got plenty of solutions, which can make water distribution more effective, and we’ve got the expertise to bring solutions to areas in the world, where water and power are both hard to come by. On top of that, we have got strong competencies in designing cutting-edge wastewater solutions.
But we also have an employee programme, where staff from all over the world in collaboration with Grundfos funds water projects in areas, where water wouldn’t otherwise flow. We call it Water2Life, and currently we have reached several societies in Vietnam and Kenya with water.
That is something, I’m pretty proud of. All the while I’m also very aware that there is only so much, a company and its employees can do alone.
That’s why I’ll also spend some time thinking about the important partnerships, which are crucial to mitigate the world’s water challenges. The public, private and societal spheres must all pull in the same direction to handle this. We’ve already ventured into several partnerships with NGO’s and others, where we together use our capabilities to shape something better.
I personally believe, we need more of this to achieve what we are aiming for in 2030. And I will give more thought to how we can put more power behind this work in the future.
Water. We wouldn’t be here without it. Neither as a company, nor as individuals.