Water – The unseen luxury sector risk that demands collective action
Article by Ariane Lardo, Senior Sustainability Consultant at Quantis
Water is fast becoming one of the defining challenges of our time. Global water use has surged by 600% over the past century[1], yet availability and quality are declining—roughly half the world’s population faces severe water scarcity for part of the year[2], and 80% of wastewater is discharged untreated[3]. Climate change is intensifying these pressures through more frequent droughts, floods, and heatwaves, threatening water security for communities, ecosystems, and businesses alike.
In the luxury sector, particularly in Watches and Jewellery, water is essential throughout the value chain, from mining and material processing to final production. This makes water not just a resource issue but a strategic one, with implications for supply chain resilience, regulatory risk, and a company’s social license to operate.
Water is inherently local, unlike carbon emissions, which have global impacts. Every watershed has its own context, risks, and stakeholders. That’s why water stewardship must be grounded in local realities. Companies need to understand where their operations intersect with water stress, such as gold refining in India or diamond mining in Botswana, and respond with site-specific actions that respect local needs and ecosystems. This could include improving wastewater treatment at gold processing facilities, supporting community water access near diamond mines, or investing in water recycling systems at cutting and polishing sites. A one-size-fits-all approach simply cannot deliver meaningful outcomes.
Addressing water challenges requires more than isolated corporate efforts. Water risks are often shared among multiple users within the same watershed: local communities, farmers, industrial users, and ecosystems. Therefore, the most effective solutions emerge from collaboration. Collective action uniting companies, communities, governments, and NGOs enables stakeholders to pool resources, align around shared goals, and tackle the root causes of water challenges in a coordinated way. This kind of collaboration can improve local water governance, fund infrastructure improvements, and support water resilience. It also amplifies impact: what one company cannot achieve alone, a coalition – which can be comprised of players of the same sector but also with multiple and diverse actors in a specific water – can move forward together. For the Watch and Jewellery sector, collective initiatives not only reduce risk but also present an opportunity to lead, influence standards, and accelerate progress toward nature-positive outcomes.
So how can one company start acting on water? Here is a practical pathway to begin.
- Identify water-related hotspots across your value chain: where is water stress most urgent and most material to your business along your value chain?
- Integrate water stewardship into your internal operations, ensuring that your own house is in order. This builds credibility and sets the foundation for broader engagement.
- Engage beyond your operations by identifying opportunities for collective action. Companies should seek to collaborate not only in the watersheds where they operate, but also in those that are critical to their supply chains, such as mining locations or material processing sites.
Collective action can significantly amplify impact, build resilience, and support sustainable water management at scale. For example, companies sourcing from the same area may co-invest in green infrastructure like constructed wetlands for natural wastewater treatment, rainwater harvesting systems to reduce freshwater demand, or riparian buffer zones to restore local ecosystems. These efforts may also include supplier training, joint water risk assessments, and alignment on mitigation strategies. These early partnerships lay the groundwork for long-term collaboration. As companies progress on their water journey, the process becomes iterative, growing in depth and scale through engagement with suppliers, partners, and other stakeholders to increase reach and impact.
The Watch and Jewellery Initiative’s Nature Roadmap offers valuable, practical guidance to support companies at every stage of their water journey. But ultimately, meaningful progress on water requires the industry to act collectively with shared ambition and shared responsibility. To help drive this forward, WJI is partnering with Quantis to invite its members to jointly identify water-related hotspots in key sourcing countries and collaborate with suppliers to address shared challenges. This next phase of collective action will focus on turning insights into coordinated, on-the-ground impact across the value chain.
[1] UNESCO, UN-Water, 2020: United Nations World Water Development Report 2020: Water and Climate Change, Paris, UNESCO.
[2] UNESCO, UN-Water, 2024: United Nations World Water Development Report 2024: Water for Prosperity and Peace, Paris, UNESCO.
[3] UNESCO, UN-Water, 2017: United Nations World Water Development Report 2017: Wastewater – The Untapped Resource, Paris, UNESCO