The Global Environmental Management Initiative (GEMI), a global network for corporate sustainability efforts, today announced that it is partnering with the World Business Council on Sustainable Development to develop a new tool for its roster of online sustainability offerings that will help companies understand water challenges wherever they operate.

The GEMI Local Water Tool makes it easier to add the critical component of water to a company's sustainability efforts. When it is completed early next year, it will be free and publicly available tool and applicable to companies everywhere in the world, as well as for companies looking to focus a spotlight on particularly water-stressed regions in their operations.

The partnership will align the LWT with the WBCSD's Global Water Tool, which lets companies easily map their global water use and assess risks in supply chains and global operations.

"The focus of this cooperation is to ensure that the tools are fully compatible to enable users to achieve full value from use of both tools." Keith Miller, GEMI Chairperson and manager for 3M's sustainability initiatives, said in a statement. "In addition, the LWT and GWT are a resource of best practices for sustainable water management at the global, regional, national and local levels."

The development process for the LWT is being led by Karl Fennessey, Director of Water and Biodiversity at ConocoPhillips; Bill Lechner, Vice President, Global Environment Health and Safety & Security at The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company; and Maurice Bechard, Vice President of Global Environment Health and Safety, Diversey, Inc.

"GEMI is expanding the information and learnings of GEMI's two existing water sustainability solution tools, Connecting the Drops (2002) and Collecting the Drops (2007), with new risk assessment and reporting features to create a new tool," Fennessey said in a statement. "This new tool is being designed to encourage businesses to conduct systematic local assessments of their relationship to water, identify specific opportunities and risks associated with this relationship and report key indicators to stakeholders," Fennessey stated.

When it is complete, the LWT will be an interactive, downloadable module for companies to develop site-specific sustainable water management strategies. CH2M Hill, which helped in developing the WBCSD's water tool, is also taking part in the creation of the LWT.

"If companies today expect to compete and succeed in an increasingly water-constrained world, proactive water management must become a core competency," Bjorn Stigson, President of the WBCSD, said in a statement. "It is a fundamental truism that you can't manage what you can't measure. That is why we have partnered with GEMI to ensure that companies have access to a variety of tools that can be integrated into a comprehensive water management solution."

More information about GEMI's other sustainability tools are online at GEMI.org.

_{Photo CC-licensed by Luz A. Villa.}