The Water Management Pact is an initiative with the goal of placing the topic of WATER at the centre of the Portuguese national agenda.
This initiative's partner institutions take responsibility towards adopting more sustainable strategies in order to contribute to a more efficient management of water as a resource.
Context
The access to WATER as a natural resource, at an acceptable cost and with the desired quality, is vital for domestic consumption, for industry, for the farming sector, and for varied corporate services and activities.
With around three billion people joining the global category of "consumers" within the next two decades, the demand pressure on this resource should increase significantly.
In June 2020, the Center for Responsible Business & Leadership at CATÓLICA-LISBON organized the “Water Summit”, opened by the Minister for the Environment and featuring several companies and entities, with the goal of giving all participants a clear understanding of the challenges related to water usage in the world of business, in an integrated logic that followed value chains.
Four main messages resulted from this event:
There is no denying water scarcity.
Companies have a clear role to play.
Partnerships are crucial.
The time for action is now.
In this context, several of the entities involved in the event and others that have since joined us understood that there is cause for a coordinated effort to try to turn this initiative into something more permanent and structured. This is how the Water Management Pact was born, with the ambition of turning the conclusions of the event into a concrete "call to action".
Goals
The commitments agreed upon among the founding organizations of the Water Management Pact have been summarized into a Manifesto and Commitment for Water Management in Portugal (Manifesto e Compromisso para a Gestão da Água em Portugal, available only in Portuguese).
The Manifesto brings out the value and importance of water and the need to rethink the traditional operational models in order to contribute to the ecological transformation of a sector that is indispensable to economic growth.
In turning resource management more efficient and preventing risks associated with water management, we are contributing towards a more circular economy for this resource and towards the investment in more efficient and economically resilient operations.
The Manifesto highlights the challenge that Portugal faces in the topic of water management in an integrated perspective, by placing it at the centre of any company, sector or entity's decision-making process, be it on a local or national level.
Based on the commitments made for the Manifesto, the goals of the initiative look to promote a higher awareness, increasing knowledge and dissemination of good practices in the heart of the partitipating organizations and in Portugal, in the following areas:
Founding Institutions
How can other companies join the Pact?
It is the conviction of the current partners in this initiative that, due to its intrinsic merit, many other entitites may join this Pact in such a way that, through a colaborative spirit and awareness of the urgency of this topic, the solutions to the challenge of water scarcity in Portugal may found.
Interested in the topic of water and wondering how your organization might participate?
Reach out through our email address pacto-agua.clsbe@ucp.pt
Center for Responsible Business & Leadership
The Center for Responsible Business & Leadership (CRB) is a strategic arm of Católica Lisbon’s ambition to be a catalyst for IMPACT creation, knowledge and innovation promotion.