Watermarq Summer Update - 02.08.24

Welcome to the first of our bimonthly newsletters, where we will be sharing our progress & insights on water valuation, data, and collective action.?

What we’re working on…

• Cracking on with our core technical development - integrating and analysing geospatial & locally-sourced data to derive information on water supply and demand in the Zambezi basin as our pilot, before expanding our approach to other water-stressed basins.?
• Advancing opportunities for engagement with the public sector and development finance institutions, relating to water valuation and collective action.?
• Exploring how to incorporate WASH (water, sanitation & hygiene) into our data analysis, and understanding current best practice relating to corporate action on community WASH provision.?
• Working with our Advisory Board, who have been instrumental in providing feedback and guidance on our strategy, product pipeline, and communications.?

In case you missed it…

• We published a short paper on current approaches to corporate internal water pricing, based on an analysis of 188 CDP respondents. Read the full paper here or Alex Money 's quick summary on LinkedIn.
• We’ve updated our website with the latest materials, which you can view on our homepage.

Team activity

• Lubasi Limweta , our amazing basin specialist at Watermarq and a DPhil researcher at the University of Oxford, received high recognition from the President of Zambia, H.E. Hakainde Hichilema for his Master’s dissertation on the "Impacts of Urbanisation and Land Management on Groundwater Security in Lusaka – Zambia". Lubasi continues to work with key institutions in Zambia to explore how to apply and expand this research. Read more.
• Our Geospatial Lead Sara Pruckner had a paper published from a previous role at UNEP-WCMC, titled “An ecological coherence assessment of the Wider Caribbean Region marine protected area network”. Read the full paper here.
• As part of World Youth Skills Day, our Ops Lead George Carew-Jones featured in an interview on green jobs by C40 Cities. Read the interview here.
• In June we welcomed Jacob Robertson , Hetty Bieber , and Matthew Buckley into the team for a week-long ‘Micro-internship’ placement, offered through the Careers Service, University of Oxford . They provided a hugely valuable contribution to work on quantifying per-capita water consumption, and our research paper on internal water pricing. We were also lucky to have Anna-Sophia Bond join us for a short internship supporting various research activities.?

Events?

Since September last year, Alex Money and Bethan Adams have supported the World Water Council as Thematic and Topic Coordinators for the 10th World Water Forum , which took place in May this year. The Forum provided an opportunity to connect with international partners, contribute to discussions around water financing, innovation, and data, and learn from others. Catch up on Bethan’s takeaways from the Forum here.

George Carew-Jones attended EU Green Week, ‘Towards a water resilient Europe’, following our receipt of a travel grant from Innovate UK . This was the first time that the Green Week has ever been themed on freshwater, and resembles a step towards a new European ‘Blue Deal’ to address water scarcity.?

Alex Money will be attending World Water Week in Stockholm later this month, and the rest of the team will be tuning into sessions online, so please do get in touch if you’d like to connect with us there.?

Community?

We’re lucky to be part of innovative & forward-thinking networks in earth observation, sustainability & water. We’re especially grateful to the Sustainable Ventures team for their support on grants, design support and market sizing over the past few months; Space4Climate and the numerous funding & research opportunities shared through the network; and Andy Bennett and the Ignite Labs team for ongoing tips on business engagement and fundraising.??

What we’re reading…??

PwC’s CSRD survey (summary article here) found that whilst companies are generally confident in their ability to meet new reporting requirements under the EU’s CSRD, this falls for new topics such as water and marine resources (ESRS E3), with data availability and quality as the most common barrier.?

The World Bank’s Funding A Water Secure Future highlights an annual spending shortfall of c.US $140 billion between current spending and required investment to achieve the SDG targets for universal access to safe water and sanitation. Watermarq applies this type of data in our shadow water price framework to ascribe a “value” to water that better reflects investment needs, beyond a volumetric cost.

Investor demand for data on corporate water risks more than doubles in a year, as reported by CDP. This follows a record-number of requests to high-impact companies to disclose water-related impacts and risks, under CDP's Non-Disclosure Campaign representing a $21 trillion-strong group of global investors, banks and insurers.

The challenge of closing the climate adaptation gap for water supply utilities by University of Oxford colleagues, an insightful and accessible paper that quantifies unsustainable utility supply risks and adaptation measures under climate change & demand growth scenarios.?

Alex Money Adriana Calderon Sara Pruckner Lubasi Limweta George Carew-Jones Bethan Adams Jennifer Willetts, PhD Luke Sussams Claudia Neuschulz Rachael McDonnell Richard Bailey Professor Mette Morsing Mamohloding Maahlo-Tlhagale Chewe Chishala, PMP? Emilio Cattaneo Régis Garandeau Emma Parker Abby McGuckin Nick Staite MBA