While 70 percent of the world's surface is covered by water, it is estimated that only 1 percent of those total water resources is available for human use. Currently, between 500 million and 2 billion people are living in conditions of water stress. It is estimated that this number will rise to about 5.5 billion people by 2025.
Meanwhile, experts expect water use to increase by 22 percent over the next two decades.
The mission objective: "Business Roundtable launched the S.E.E. Change (Society, Environment and the Economy) initiative in September 2005. S.E.E. Change asks America's leading companies to set challenging goals that benefit society, the environment and the economy. In essence, it is "doing well by doing good," but it also uses economic value as part of its criteria for evaluating goals and metrics. S.E.E. Change is designed to encourage market expansion; cancel inefficiencies; recruit, retain and motivate top talent; increase return on investments; and provide measurable benefits for both the company and its shareholders."
So far, these are the participating companies:
Abbott Laboratories
Accenture
Alcoa, Inc.
American Electric Power
Caterpillar Inc.
Citi
The Coca-Cola Company
Convergys Corporation
The Dow Chemical Company
DuPont
Eastman Kodak Company
Eaton Corporation
Eli Lilly and Company
Fannie Mae
FPL Group, Inc.
General Electric Company
General Motors Corporation
HSBC - North America
Ingersoll Rand Company Limited
ITT Corporation
The McGraw-Hill Companies
National Gypsum Company
Office Depot, Inc.
Owens Corning
Pfizer Inc
Siemens Corporation
Springs Global US, Inc.
State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company
Tenneco
Weyerhaeuser Company
Xerox Corporation
SOURCELabels: water conservation |
