Although RepRisk found criticism of overuse of water related to the Food and Beverage, Forestry, Paper, Alternative Energy and Biofuel industries, this report focuses on three industries over the past twelve months to analyze the impact of their operations on local communities and ecosystems. These industries are: Mining, Utilities and Oil & Gas. The Reprisk Reputation Risk Index (RRI®) and its trend are provided over a two year period for each sector.
Mining has been criticized for using vast quantities of underground water and for discharging toxic waste into freshwater sources. Indigenous groups have organized protests against companies in the Utilities sector, claiming that power plants are destroying their communities by drying out their sources of drinking water and irrigation. The 'fracking' technique and tar sands extraction method used by the Oil and Gas sector have been harshly criticized for using vast quantities of water and for contaminating underground water reserves.
Companies face a number of risks related to water scarcity and contamination. These include increased regulation or even the nationalization of water resources, loss of license to operate and/or lack of water supplies required for production. They may also face litigation, public backlash, protests, or shareholder resolutions, leading to reputational damage and ensuing financial loss.
To read the full report click here: http://www.reprisk.com/downloads/mccreports/22/Water%20Scarcity%20-%20FINAL.pdf
About RepRisk
RepRisk™ monitors environmental, social and governance issues. Through this monitoring, our analysts cover negative news in 13 languages on more than 20,000 listed and unlisted companies. The coverage of companies is not limited and the data is updated daily. The criticism on companies from thousands of publicly available sources is collected, analyzed and quantified by the analysts. This results in summaries describing the relevant accusations specific to the companies and projects in each article, together with the RepRisk Index (RRI), a unique quant based indicator of reputational risks. These risks are specifically related to a company's, project's, sector's or country's environmental footprint, community and employee issues, human rights violations, corruption, fraud, and tax evasion issues, among others.
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Contacts:
Alessandra Oglino, Project Manager
Tel. + 41 43 300 54 48
oglino@reprisk.com
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