Article: Developing Sustainable Water Strategies

Sustainable strategies can be defined in many ways for an organization. In the context of water resources, a framework can be placed around the definition of sustainable strategies for the purposes of developing a formalized plan for addressing water resources. Sustainable strategies in terms of water resources for industry should consider the alteration of consumptive patterns, recycle, and reuse in addition to providing a positive impact to four criteria: (1) an organization’s function, (2) its surrounding neighborhoods, (3) its environmental position and (4) its financial well-being. The measurement of impacts to each of these criteria can be left for another discussion, but impacts should be selected so that they are quantifiable. The importance of individual criteria can often be dependant on a particular challenge, organization, and region.