Double-interview with Iris Van der Veken, Executive Director & Secretary General, WJI 2030 & Sara Traubel, Nature & Water Lead Switzerland at Quantis
Setting the scene
In one sentence, what should a watch & jewellery leader understand about water in 2026 — and why is this moment so critical?
Iris Van der Veken
Water is rapidly becoming one of the defining resilience challenges for global value chains, and for the watch and jewellery sector, addressing it now is essential not only for environmental stewardship, but also for business continuity, human rights, and long-term competitiveness.
Sara Traubel
The industry can no longer view water as a peripheral sustainability issue — it is a shared strategic resource that requires collective stewardship and responsible leadership across the value chain.
When we describe water as a “systemic risk,” what does that mean in practice for global value chains — and for the people who depend on them?
Sara Traubel
Water is systemic because it affects every layer of the value chain simultaneously. Water scarcity, declining water quality, and extreme weather events can disrupt sourcing regions, operations, ecosystems, and communities at the same time. Unlike many other risks, water is local and shared — companies depend on the same watersheds as workers, suppliers, and surrounding communities.
For global value chains, this means water-related disruptions increasingly translate into operational instability, rising costs, regulatory pressure, and reputational exposure. Recent CDP disclosures from 2025 indicate that companies are reporting well over US$300 billion in potential financial impacts linked to water-related risks.
But the impacts are also deeply human. Limited access to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene can directly affect health, dignity, and economic opportunity, particularly in vulnerable regions where many supply chains operate.
By 2030, global water demand could exceed available supply by around 40%, illustrating how rapidly these pressures are intensifying.
From WJI 2030’s perspective, why does water need to be addressed at board level — alongside climate and nature?
Iris Van der Veken
Because water underpins both environmental resilience and social stability. For our sector, water is directly connected to sourcing, manufacturing, regulatory expectations, and stakeholder trust. Companies increasingly recognize that water risks are not isolated operational issues — they are strategic risks that can affect long-term business resilience.
At the same time, water is closely linked to companies’ responsibility to respect human rights. Access to safe water and sanitation is fundamental, and expectations around due diligence are evolving rapidly. Addressing water at board level therefore means recognizing its role not only in environmental stewardship, but also in responsible business conduct.
A sector structurally exposed to water and social risk
What makes the watch and jewellery value chain particularly exposed to water-related risks – and how do these risks intersect with social and human rights considerations?
Iris Van der Veken
The sector’s value chain is geographically diverse and highly interconnected, with sourcing and production often taking place in regions already facing increasing water stress or pollution issues. From mining and refining to manufacturing and finishing, water plays a critical role across many stages of production. This exposure is particularly significant upstream: our analysis in the WJI 2030’s Water Stewardship Guide shows that up to 90% of diamonds are mined in areas exposed to high or very high water risk, while 90% of global gold production and 90% of global silver production originate from regions facing medium to high water risks.
This challenge is becoming increasingly widespread. According to the World Resources Institute (WRI), around half of the global population (around 4 billion people) experiences high water-stress for at least one month each year. India is identified as one of the countries expected to face particularly significant economic exposure to increasing water stress in the coming decades, illustrating the growing pressure on water resources in regions where industry, agriculture, and communities depend on the same resource.
The impacts are not only environmental. The International Labour Organization estimates that approximately 2.4 billion workers—representing 71% of the global workforce—are exposed to excessive heat. In many regions, the combined effects of heat stress, water scarcity, and limited access to drinking water can directly affect worker health, safety, wellbeing, and productivity.
At the same time, these water challenges frequently intersect with broader social issues, including community access to water, worker wellbeing, and local livelihoods. When water becomes scarce or polluted, it is often the most vulnerable groups who are affected first. This is why water stewardship in our sector cannot be approached only through an environmental lens; it must also consider people, human rights, and the shared nature of water resources.
For luxury sectors in particular, trust, transparency, and responsible sourcing are increasingly important. Companies therefore need to understand not only their operational footprint, but also the broader water context across their supply chains and the communities that depend on the same resources.
Where do you see the key “hotspots” of water dependency and impact across the sector – and how do these translate into risks for both ecosystems and communities?
Sara Traubel
The most significant hotspots tend to occur upstream, particularly in extraction and processing activities, where water dependency and water quality risks can be substantial. But risks are not limited to one stage of the value chain. Manufacturing processes, supplier operations, and surrounding communities can all be affected by increasing water stress, changing hydrological conditions, and the consequences of water pollution.
Importantly, many of these impacts occur in shared basins where ecosystems, industries, and communities rely on the same resource. Water risks do not stay within factory walls. That is why companies need to move beyond managing water just within their four walls and begin understanding their broader water context and dependencies. That’s precisely what makes water stewardship as an approach so powerful: it helps companies understand and address shared water challenges in the same basin.
Women’s rights at the intersection of water and human rights
Access to water, sanitation and hygiene is deeply connected to dignity, health, and opportunity. From your experience, how do water-related challenges disproportionately affect women across supply chains?
Sara Traubel
Water, sanitation, and hygiene are deeply connected to health, dignity, safety, and economic participation. In many contexts, women are disproportionately affected when access to safe water or sanitation is limited. This can influence everything from health outcomes to time burdens and participation in education or work.
Within supply chains, inadequate WASH conditions can also affect worker wellbeing and safety, particularly where sanitation infrastructure is insufficient or not gender-responsive. Looking at water through a gender lens helps companies better understand how environmental and social risks intersect in practice.
This is all the more important given that one in four people still lack access to safely managed drinking water, while 3.5 billion people lack safely managed sanitation [Source: WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme]. This is a significant share of the global population, and it is a matter for concern for the watch and jewelry sector. It is pivotal that companies identify and address any gaps in access to WASH that exist for the people that are involved in their value chain, be it at the workplace or in their homes and communities.
How are water-related challenges connected to women’s rights, and how can companies integrate these considerations into their water and human rights due diligence?
Iris Van der Veken
Water-related challenges are closely connected to women’s rights because their impacts are often most acutely felt by women and girls: the United Nations estimates that where water access is lacking, women and girls are responsible for water collection in up to 7 out of 10 cases. When access to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene is limited, it can affect health, dignity, safety, education, and economic opportunities.
For companies, this means understanding who is most affected by water-related risks and ensuring that these perspectives are reflected in due diligence processes. In practice, this requires engaging directly with women workers and community members, improving visibility into local conditions, and integrating WASH considerations into broader human rights assessments.
Moving from awareness to action also means adopting more inclusive and gender-responsive approaches when designing policies and interventions. Women should be recognized not only as beneficiaries of water stewardship efforts, but also as key stakeholders in shaping solutions and building more resilient communities and supply chains.
WASH: from social issue to core business responsibility
Many still see WASH as a philanthropic issue. What would you say to demonstrate that access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene is fundamental to supply chain resilience – and to protecting vulnerable groups, especially women?
Sara Traubel
WASH is often underestimated because it is viewed primarily through a social or charitable lens. In reality, access to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene is foundational to workforce health, operational resilience, and responsible supply chains. As highlighted in a recent WaterAid report, applying a WASH lens in companies’ due diligence is essential to identify whether a company is adversely impacting the right to water and sanitation and related protected environmental and human rights.
Poor WASH conditions can contribute to illness, absenteeism, reduced productivity, and broader social instability. For companies, these are not abstract social concerns – they are material risks that can affect supply continuity and long-term resilience. WASH is not philanthropy – it is infrastructure and services for resilient supply chains.
Addressing WASH is therefore both a human rights responsibility and a business imperative.
How can brands and manufacturers address WASH in a credible way – linking it clearly to human rights due diligence, risk management, and gender-responsive practices?
Iris Van der Veken
Credibility starts with recognizing that WASH is not separate from core business responsibilities. Companies should integrate water and WASH considerations into their existing due diligence, risk assessment, and supplier engagement processes rather than treating them as standalone initiatives.
Equally important is collaboration. Because water is a shared resource, meaningful progress requires collective action across the value chain and engagement with local stakeholders. No company can solve water challenges alone.
This is precisely where initiatives like WJI 2030 can play an important role – helping align the sector around practical tools, shared approaches, and implementation pathways.
What should companies do next?
Sara Traubel
Companies should start by understanding where their most significant water dependencies, impacts, and risks exist – not only within direct operations, but across their value chains. WJI 2030’s Nature Roadmap, as well as the Science-based targets for Nature (SBTN) methodologies and the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) set out a way for companies to get started on this journey.
Once a company has identified these hotspots, it will be important to work closely with the site or suppliers in question to help them address water risks through water stewardship; the WJI 2030’s Water Stewardship Guide and Assessment tool has been designed for exactly this purpose.
Iris Van der Veken
For the future resilience of our sector, it is essential to move from awareness to implementation, and our tools are designed to help companies do just that. Water stewardship must become embedded into how companies think about sourcing, resilience, due diligence, and long-term value creation.