Assessing Water Opportunities and Risks

Following my post on the drought in China, I came across this framework of guidelines for assessing the opportunities and risks posed by rising water stress from the United Nations Environment Program Finance Initiative (UNEPFI), which is a global partnership between UNEP and the financial sector. Over 170 institutions, including banks, insurers and fund managers, work with UNEP to understand the impacts of environmental and social considerations on financial performance. It is titlted, Half Full or Half Empty? A Set of Indicative Guidelines for Water Related Risks and an Overview of Emerging Opportunities for Financial Institutions. If you would like a brief summary and analysis of water scarcity issues, which I will be expanding on in the future, I suggest you take a look at one of my previous posts titled, Blue Gold.
I used to have a gym teacher in junior high school that use to say to kids when they were out of line, "Listen son! You'd better ask yourself a question, is your glass half full or half empty?" in a Clint Eastwood, Dirty Harry manner. Coincidentally, he also led a class called outdoor education and was a rather environmentally focused individual. I'm happy to say that I learned the lesson he was trying to teach me, and that my glass will always be half full, the unfortunate thing is that more and more I begin to realize that the World's glass is half empty, and something needs to be done about it.