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World Water Day is celebrated globally on the 22nd of March 2024 as a reminder of the commitment to Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6: water and sanitation for all by 2030.
The theme for 2024 is Leveraging Water for Peace. The Campaign is celebrated internationally, supported by the UN and aims to draw attention to the importance of having access to water, and ensure peace and wellbeing. Every nation needs to address water scarcity, because our global water system is complex, and inequity exists. Today about 2.2 billion people still lack access to clean drinking water for example, Mexico City right now is facing a water crisis.Â
ARKANCE is proud to partner with The World Green Building Council in their Circularity Accelerator Program, now in its third year. The Accelerator Program recently published a position paper called Building a Water-Resilient Future, launched before COP 28 last year saying that ''the freshwater crisis is now as urgent as making the transition to zero carbon''.
Dr. Dennis Truax, former President of the American Society of Engineers reviewed the publication as part of a recent conversation with ARKANCE. Dr. Truax expressed that the publication is very thought-provoking and does an excellent job of outlining the role of the building and construction sector in tackling the global water crisis. He offered this reflection on the challenges it aims to address, saying that it is missing a fifth challenge, that of national security.
''The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, World Green Building Council, and Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure established an overarching goal of helping develop sustainable and equitable communities. They recognize water as the foundation of human health, economic development, and environmental preservation. However, the global population continues to concentrate in urban environments lacking the water resources needed.
The WGBC has defined four challenges to address this global water crisis. I feel a fifth challenge is assuring national security by addressing inequity and scarcity before it leads to social and political unrest threatening communities and nations''.
The paper looks at the four scales of water usage in the Built Environment and describes the impact of tackling the water crisis within the built environment. This is a massive challenge for the industry but also presents immense opportunities to address the water crisis on a global scale. Supported by exemplary case studies from around the world, this paper highlights four key areas across the built environment, where solutions can, and are, being actioned to tackle this crisis.
On World Water Day 2024, the focus echoes the importance of national security even more as a nation's economy as well as the wellbeing of its people depend on access to fresh water.
Infrastructure resilience and sustainability are critical in positively shaping the future of water. The technology already exists to fix aging infrastructure and better manage water by designing for circularity. There is no lack of resources, the solution lies in competent leadership, efficient stakeholder engagement processes and acting collaboratively in taking a whole systems approach to solutions, in time. It is possible though collaboration and community support to remove the regulatory barriers to allow water corporations to innovate circular design of water together with industry. Both can leverage their expertise to become pivotal and powerful innovative partners for water circularity.
Jodie Bricout, Circular Economy Leader at Aurecon joined the Think.Future podcast earlier this year and shared her point of view on Designing for a Circular Economy with water in mind.
''Water corporations are such an exciting space for potential circular innovation. They are place-based, so they're really fixed in an area, they interact with all of the community and all of the businesses in the area and they actually manage this system of resources in a place-based area. So they can have, I think, more than any other type of business they can really impact the circularity of the area or the zone that they're operating in. They are set up not to do that, they're set up to provide safe drinking water at reasonable prices to communities''.
On World Water Day, let's think about water for life and how to leverage place-based partnerships and digitization technology to leverage water for peace on this ship we are on called planet Earth. This planet is our home, so a problem for one nation becomes a problem for all. We must urgently solve this challenge together if we want to secure a future for our environment, our people, and ensure peace for all nations.
Authored by Johanne Gallagher, ARKANCE Strategic Delivery Lead, Sustainability.
About ARKANCE
For over 20 years the brands under ARKANCE company, have been providing software solutions and professional services to Architectural, Engineering, Construction and Manufacturing industries helping them to understand the role of digitalization for the built environment. Businesses both large and small utilize ARKANCE's dedicated industry experts to help navigate technologies as they emerge, driving efficiency and improving workflows. With a global focus on reducing emissions and increased focus directed towards industry, ARKANCE are now turning their attention to providing the linkages between using technology to digitize, and at the same time leveraging the valuable data insights it brings to build more sustainably. ARKANCE are passionate about helping their customers understand how the technologies they use today can help them to step towards net zero in the future, to build a better world.