CDP this month issued its first ever questionnaire to more than 1,200 publicly listed financial institutions in order to gather information on the risks and opportunities they face through exposure to water across their portfolios. "In the absence of any governmental mandate for financial institutions to undertake water-related due diligence and disclose their water impact in a public manner, CDP has stepped in to fill the void," explained Cate Lamb, CDP's global head of water. "It is ultimately a way in which we can enhance the accountability of those firms to act on water security issues, and we believe that's a vital first step on the road to ultimately mandating that requirement," she told GWI. While one third of the financial institutions that responded to CDP's traditional questionnaire in 2020 and 2021 admitted they were not assessing the implications of water insecurity when making investment or loan decisions, that figure is gradually improving. Ever the pragmatist, Lamb concedes that a large proportion of the 1,200 firms may not respond at all in the first year, but warns - not for the first time - that holding back is not a sustainable option. "There's no doubt that it adds another layer of complexity, but we've demonstrated with our research that a failure to act is much more costly than the cost of actually addressing the issues," she reiterated.
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