AWS Global Water Stewardship Forum Key Insights

On May 16-17, almost 200 delegates gathered at the Dynamic Earth venue in Edinburgh, Scotland to dive into constructive conversations on water stewardship at the Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS) Forum. Among the delegates was a group of 10 representatives of the Inogen Alliance, who are thrilled to share their insights with you.

The 2023 AWS Global Water Stewardship Forum opened with key messages and takeaways from the UN Water Conference in New York. While it was a once in a generation opportunity to galvanise energy and investments for a secure water future, many felt there was a lack of actionable items resulting from the event and noted the lack of strong commitments from the global governments towards global and local action on water stewardship. In this opening session we heard from influential global water initiatives on what we can do to use the momentum from the UN Water Conference to build mutually supportive relationships in pursuit of SDG6 and strengthen water governance.

The day continued with an interactive session fostering the renewed spirit of collaboration and collective ambition emerging across the water stewardship community as a consequence of the UN 2023 Water Conference. This discussion brought forth one of the biggest themes for the Forum – the idea of ‘convergence’. We discussed the architecture of water stewardship and the strength of existing initiatives and frameworks, and focused on ways we can use the foundation already laid to become more effective in our actions. As we move from collaboration towards alignment in goals, principles, approaches, and language, we will be able to achieve convergence on effective, scalable actions. In many ways, the water stewardship community has reached a critical mass in terms of public buy-in and available funding - the conversation surrounding water stewardship has already shifted towards action. The goal now is to simplify and consolidate water stewardship in the world of increasingly complex science, reporting frameworks, and stakeholder expectations.

We closed the first day of the Forum with practical perspectives on implementing the AWS Standard. Corporate leaders in water stewardship shared lessons learned, best practices, and tips for achieving AWS certification. According to Ashish Bhardwaj, Regional Point of Contact, AWS India, “Sometimes there are small industries that don’t have the resources and capacity to carry out all this work by themselves, and that’s where the role of AWS accredited consultants becomes very important.”

Some of the shared lessons included keeping things simple, building on existing water stewardship initiatives and programs, developing a strong action plan/roadmap, and finding opportunities to implement projects with add-on climate, biodiversity, and social benefits. The leading best practice, however, was making sure you have strong documentation procedures in place - sometimes, the biggest impacts are found in the simplest solutions.

On Day 2, we were back at Dynamic Earth bright and early, ready for another day of valuable discussions, collaboration, and learning. We began the second day with a dive into the AWS Standard review and revision process. Delegates had a chance to learn how the AWS approaches the revision process, when and where feedback is solicited, and we now eagerly await the next version of the Standard in 2025. We then heard from three organisations working at the interface of water and climate, discussing opportunities for the next iteration of the AWS Standard to strengthen the climate action agenda. Water practitioners know that water stewardship is a path to climate resilience, but we need to communicate this to governments and financial institutions. As consultants we can help bridge the gap which often arises between ‘policy’ and ‘delivery’’ levels, and between various sectors, such as private and public, with the scope of facilitating the implementation of granular and tangible actions.

We then got a chance to roll up our sleeves and put our thinking hats on as we heard about proposed changes to the Standard to revise certification requirements that could better enable certification at scale. A lively group discussion ensued, and we got to see the concept of “Scenius” in action as global water practitioners engaged in discourse and collaboration to gather feedback for AWS on the proposed changes.

In the afternoon, we heard from another group of AWS Members, who shared their experiences and knowledge on implementing water stewardship in their supply chains. Businesses and consultancies operating across multiple business sectors shared their experiences from developing and implementing water stewardship strategies across supply chains. Group discussions touched on the importance of making the business case for water and leveraging multi-sectoral collaborations and groups. The interactive discussion was followed by an illuminating session on data and technology's role in enabling action. Data informs when, where, and how water stewardship initiatives can blossom. Emerging and existing technology can be leveraged to greatly accelerate and accentuate the impact of initiatives and interventions. We learned the many ways to use data and technology to optimize water stewardship decision-making and action.

We closed out our last day with reflections on the Forum and looking forward to what is next. We reiterated the need to continue fostering inclusivity both within the water stewardship community and as we engage and communicate with local communities and stakeholders. We need to build capacity and extend this to regulatory/governing bodies if we are going to achieve critical mass towards scalable global action. As Beatrice Bizzaro, Project Manager HPC Italy, Inogen Alliance Water Working Group Lead puts it, “Based on all the global goals and objectives that we have set, we need to work on bridging the gap and finding local targets and local actions that can really get these global goals moving on a local scale.” There are numerous global goals and commitments set forth and the need to translate them into local, granular actions is becoming an imminent need– this is where we can step in to help guide the path forward.

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