Water stress is already hitting operating costs, supply chains and infrastructure across European industry and shortages now rank as high as cyber-attacks and supply chain disruption for industrial business continuity.

Schneider Electric has released The Water Crunch Report, a new research report revealing that water is now one of the biggest risks to industrial business continuity across Europe, ranking as highly as cyber-attacks and supply chain disruption. This echoes last year's US-focused research from Schneider Electric, where over half (56 per cent) of business leaders said water-related risks will grow faster than other infrastructure risks in the coming years.

The Water Crunch Report surveyed senior leaders at industrial companies and decision-makers at water utilities and municipalities across Europe. In the past two years, industrial leaders say water stress has already pushed up their operating costs (44 per cent), strained infrastructure and maintenance budgets (38 per cent), and disrupted supply chains (30 per cent). If a serious water supply disruption hits tomorrow, nearly half of businesses believe their operations would start to suffer within 24 hours. On average, over half of industrial leaders expect water quality or availability to become a serious barrier to their organisation's growth within the next five years, by 2031, and 14 per cent say it already is a barrier to their operations or growth today.

The findings land against the backdrop of Europe's most severe drought conditions in decades, with the knock-on effects on the freight, energy and agriculture sectors providing a stark reminder that these pressures are no longer hypothetical.

Smart water technology is widely recognised as a solution to water management, but implementation by businesses is not keeping up with awareness More encouraging news is that nearly all organisations surveyed (100 per cent of water utilities and 98 per cent of industrial leaders) say water availability or quality has already shaped major decisions, from increased investment in water efficiency (47 per cent) to formal board-level reviews of water risk (43 per cent).

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