[2008.08.23] 商业与水：日益干涸

Business and water
商业与水

Running dry
日益干涸

Aug 21st 2008 | NEW YORK
From The Economist print edition

Everyone knows industry needs oil. Now people are worrying about water, too
每个人都知道工业需要石油。如今，人们也为水资源而忧虑。

“WATER is the oil of the 21st century,” declares Andrew Liveris, the chief executive of Dow, a chemical company. Like oil, water is a critical lubricant of the global economy. And as with oil, supplies of water-at least, the clean, easily accessible sort-are coming under enormous strain because of the growing global population and an emerging middle-class in Asia that hankers for the water-intensive life enjoyed by people in the West.

化学制品公司Dow的首席执行官Andrew Liveris 断言：”水是21世纪的石油。”和石油一样，水可以说是全球经济的重要润滑剂。和石油相似，由于全球人口增长和向往和西方人一样享受奢华水生活的亚洲中产阶级的日渐涌现，水资源的供应正面临巨大压力──至少是清洁，容易抽取的水资源情况是如此。

Oil prices have fallen from their recent peaks, but concerns about the availability of freshwater show no sign of abating. Goldman Sachs, an investment bank, estimates that global water consumption is doubling every 20 years, which it calls an “unsustainable” rate of growth. Water, unlike oil, has no substitute. Climate change is altering the patterns of freshwater availability in complex ways that can lead to more frequent and severe droughts.

原油价格已从其先前高位回落，但对于活水使用的关注度却丝毫没有减弱的迹象。一间名为高盛投资银行估计全球水资源消耗量20年翻一番,他们称之为”无法承受”的增长率。水,不同于石油,它没有其他替代品。气候转变也正在以复杂的方式改变着活水可用模式，这些方式可引致更频繁和严重的旱灾。

Untrammelled industrialisation, particularly in poor countries, is contaminating rivers and aquifers. America’s generous subsidies for biofuel have increased the harvest of water-intensive crops that are now used for energy as well as food. And heavy subsidies for water in most parts of the world mean it is often grossly underpriced-and hence squandered.

无法律约束的工业化正在污染着河流和含水土层，这在贫穷国家里情况尤为常见。美国对生物燃料工作的确大力支助已使那些”耗水”作物的收成增加，而且使其可作为能源和食物两用。而在世界范围内的大多数地区，对水资源支助的费用高昂意味着水是非常低价的，因而造成了浪费。

All of this poses a problem, first and foremost, for human welfare. At the annual World Water Week conference in Stockholm this week, delegates focused on measures to extend access to clean water and sanitation to the world’s poor. But it also poses a problem for industry. “For businesses, water is not discretionary,” says Dominic Waughray of the World Economic Forum, a think-tank. “Without it, industry and the global economy falter.”

这些现象都首先带出一个问题──困扰人类福利的问题。这个星期在斯德哥尔摩举行的年度世界水资源周会上，代表们集中讨论了增加洁净水资源可用性和世界范围内贫穷人口卫生条件的诸多方法。但那也带出一个工业问题。”对商业贸易而言，水并不是可任意挥霍的，”智囊团组织”世界经济论坛”的Dominic Waughray说道：”如果缺水，工业和全球经济会衰退。”

Water is an essential ingredient in many of the products that line supermarket shelves. JPMorgan, a bank, reckons that five big food and beverage giants-Nestlé, Unilever, Coca-Cola, Anheuser-Busch and Danone-consume almost 575 billion litres of water a year, enough to satisfy the daily water needs of every person on the planet.

超级市场货架上许多产品的必要成份是水。摩根大通估计食品饮料界五强──雀巢、Unilever、可口可乐、Anheuser-Busch和达能── 一年耗差不多575亿公升的水，这个量足以满足全球人口的日均总需水量。

Although agriculture uses most water (see chart), many other products and services also depend on it. It takes around 13 cubic metres of freshwater to produce a single 200mm semiconductor wafer, for example. Chipmaking is thought to account for 25% of water consumption in Silicon Valley. Energy production is also water-intensive: each year around 40% of the freshwater withdrawn from lakes and aquifers in America is used to cool power plants. And separating just one litre of oil from tar sands-a costly alternative fuel made viable by high oil prices-requires up to five litres of water.

尽管农业的用水量最大（如图表），但其他很多的产品和服务业也都依赖水资源。例如，制造出一块2分米长的半导体晶片需消耗13立方米的水。在硅谷里，制造芯片的用水量估计占总量的25%。能源制造业也是耗水大户，美洲每年约4成从湖泊和水土层抽取的淡水，用作为能源工厂（电厂、水厂等）散热。而从焦土沙 ──这种因原油价格高昂而获得生存空间的昂价替换燃料──中去分离出只是一公升的原油，则需要五公升的水。

Quality matters as much as quantity. According to the World Bank, around 90% of the rivers in China near urban areas are seriously polluted. The overall cost of water scarcity-from pollution and the depletion of groundwater-is estimated to be 147 billion yuan ($21.4 billion) a year, or almost 1% of China’s annual output. In 2007 poor water-quality cost China some $12 billion in lost industrial output alone.

质量和数量同样重要。根据世界银行的报告，中国境内城市区域附近的河流有大约90%污染严重。由于水污染和地下水消耗所带来的水资源不足的总体代价估计约为147亿人民币（21.4亿美元），大约是中国年度财政支出的1%。2007年，仅就水质低劣问题，中国的工业产值就缩减了120亿美元。

Elsewhere, Taipei City in Taiwan no longer allows companies to tap its groundwater, because of shortages. Firms in drought-ridden Australia have lived under stringent water restrictions for years. Southern Company, an electricity utility based in Atlanta, temporarily shut down some of its power plants last summer because of a drought. Indeed, according to a survey by the Marsh Centre for Risk Insights, 40% of Fortune 1000 companies said the impact of a water shortage on their business would be “severe” or “catastrophic”-but only 17% said they were prepared for such a crisis.

在其他地方，由于地下水短缺,台湾台北市不再允许私采地下水。在饱受旱灾困扰的澳大利亚，苛刻的水资源条例约束着各公司。坐落在亚特兰大的公用电力公司Southern Company，去年夏天基于旱灾理由，关闭了旗下的一部份电厂。事实上，根据Marsh Center公司的一份危机窥探调查显示,<<财富>>杂志中世界1000强的40%都表示水资源短缺带来的冲击是”极严重的” 或”灾害性的”──但只有１７％的公司表示他们水源危机有所准备。

Not all companies are sitting still. Since 1995 Dow has reduced the amount of water it uses per tonne of output by over a third. Nestlé cut its water consumption by 29% between 1997 and 2006, even as it almost doubled the volume of food it produced. And at Coca-Cola bottling plants from Bogotá to Beijing, schools of fish swim in water tanks filled with treated wastewater, testament to the firm’s commitment to clean all its wastewater by 2010 (it is 84% of the way there).

并非所有的厂商都毫无动静。从1995年起，Dow公司就将每吨产品的用水量减少了超过三分之一。在1997年和2006年间，雀巢公司将水消耗量减少了 29%，而且是在其食品产量几乎翻倍的情况下，在可口可乐公司从波哥达（哥伦比亚首都）到北京的装瓶厂的装着中水的水缸里，很多群鱼在畅游，这是公司履行义务的证明，可口可乐公司在2010年会处理其排出的所有废水（现在的废水处理率为84%）。

Cynics say such programmes are mere public relations. There is some truth to this. Companies that use freshwater in areas where it is scarce are understandably unpopular. Activists have attacked both Coca-Cola and Pepsi, for instance, for allegedly depleting groundwater in India to make bottled drinks. Coca-Cola took the matter to court and was exonerated by an independent commission, which blamed a regional drought for water shortages, but activists were not mollified. Coca-Cola has responded by redoubling its attention to water-for instance, by backing a scheme in Kaladera to teach villagers how to harvest rainwater and irrigate crops more efficiently. “Regulatory licences to water are not enough,” says Jeff Seabright of Coca-Cola. “We need a social licence-the OK from the community-to operate.”

有愤世嫉俗者表示,这些项目不过是公司出于营销目的而树立良好社会形象的公关策略罢了。这种说法也有现实支持。在水资源短缺的地区，使用活水的公司自然不会受欢迎。例如，激进分子们已为在印度境内制造瓶装饮料而使地下水干涸的传闻而攻击可口可乐和百事两间公司。可口可乐公司将案件交由法院处理，独立陪审团判其无罪，理由是引致该地区水资源短缺的原因是自然旱灾。但激进分子们并没就此罢休。作为回应，可口可乐已将其对水资源的关注度提升了一倍──例如，在Kaladeru城内,可口可乐支持了一个教导村民如何更有效地采集雨水和灌溉作物的计划。”常规的水资源采用执照并不足够，”可口可乐公司的 Jaff Seabright表示，”我们需要的是一份全社会性的执照──整个社群都点头的执照去对问题进行操作。”

Cutting water consumption can also make business sense. Using less water reduces spending on water acquisition and treatment, and on the clean-up of wastewater. Some firms have no choice. Elion Chemical in China is working with General Electric to recycle 90% of its wastewater to comply with Beijing’s strict new “zero-liquid discharge” rules, which bar companies from dumping wastewater into the environment. Of Nestlé’s 481 factories worldwide, 49 are in extremely water-stressed regions where water conservation and re-use is the only option.

减低用水量也可使生意运行得更合理。用更少的水可使花在水采集、处理和废水净化的花费减低。很多公司都没得选择。在中国，Elion Chmical公司正在帮助通用公司达到循环使用其废水的90%，这是为了符合北京城严格的”零液体排放”的新标准，这个新标准是要防止企业向自然环境倾倒废水。雀巢公司全球范围内的491间工厂中，有49间位于水源紧张的地区，在这里只能选择水土保持和循环再用。

Such farsightedness is, alas, only a drop in the bucket. In a drought, even water-efficient factories can run into trouble. Moreover, the water used within a factory’s walls is often only a tiny fraction of a firm’s true dependence on water. José Lopez, the chief operating officer of Nestlé, notes that it takes four litres of water to make one litre of product in Nestle’s factories, but 3,000 litres of water to grow the agricultural produce that goes into it. These 3,000 litres may be outside his control, but they are very much a part of his business.

哎，这种远见只是沧海一粟。当旱灾发生时，水资源利用率高的工厂也会陷入困境。而且，一间工厂的用水量常常只是其公司真实用水量的一小部份。雀巢公司主管 Jose Lopez说,公司车间厂房里制造一公升产品需花四公升水，但生产其产品原料的农产品的三千公升水也应计算在总用水量里。这3000公升水或许不在他的职权范围之内，但确是雀巢整个产业链条中不可或缺的重要环节。

译者：tangwesley   http://www.ecocn.org/forum/viewthread.php?tid=13591&extra=page%3D1