Whispers of trouble concerning the sustainability of the world's current water usage have started emerging even in popular media. “Water is the new oil,” some have said.
Throughout my life, I have mostly taken water for granted. It’s easy to think water is an unlimited resource when it flows so freely from our taps. But there are hundreds, if not thousands of ways that we as a society are putting that resource at risk: our decaying water delivery infrastructure leaks, our power plants vaporize otherwise drinkable water, our inefficient irrigation and agricultural water transport systems waste immense quantities of water. The list goes on.
Rather than viewing these issues as insoluble problems, we could look at them through the lens of business opportunity. The question becomes: How do we attack a given water sustainability issue in a way that generates both environmental value and economic value? That is what my classmates and I will be looking into over the course of the next few weeks.
I became interested in the issue of water sustainability over the last couple of years. It started with a discussion with a friend in Mexico City about that city’s water crisis. Thoughts of one of the biggest cities in the world well on its way to running out of water and images of the ensuing small-scale war ran through my head. Not a pretty picture. So I started becoming more attuned to news articles and trade magazine commentaries on the topic. Then, after arriving at MIT Sloan, I found that several of my classmates were extremely passionate about the topic and had taken the initiative to put together this class. I jumped on the opportunity to finally do justice to my concerns.
After six classes on various aspects of the business of water, my classmates and I will have the unique opportunity to study those topics onsite with a variety of companies in the most advanced and the most needy of locations – Singapore and China. With some luck we will find some of the much-needed ways to find a sustainable way to water sustainability. I look forward to it!
