Thinking Sustainability H2O: a workshop promoting water management and resilience for small businesses

Friday 14th December, 2018
Location: Jurys Inn Cheltenham, GL51 0TS
Event organisers: Co-organised by the Centre for Water, Communities and Resilience, and Science Communication Unit, UWE Bristol with the Federation of Small Businesses
Event type: Workshop
Booking: Register online

The focus of this workshop will be the co-development of a business toolkit for increased water resilience. It will exchange knowledge from the UK About Drought project (aboutdrought.com) about ways that small and medium sized businesses can become more ‘water resilient’.

This workshop will be of particular interest to those running small and medium sized businesses that use water in any way in their business processes, and are exposed to different types of water risk.

Participants will explore the ways in which water (from flood to drought) could affect their business, including opportunities for innovation. Sharing draft resources prepared by the About Drought team, we will discuss the design of a toolkit designed to help businesses think through their water resilience. This will include reflecting on the messages and messengers that businesses engage with and trust, along with the merits of incorporating water resilient thinking into wider Business Sustainability Management.

• Water resource management (reduce, reuse, recycle)
• Resilience and management of situations for flooding and drought risk
• Contingency planning and risk management

In addition there may be opportunities to discuss:
• Regulatory compliance
• Resource efficiency and circular economy
• Integration with environmental management systems (ISO14001); CSR programmes (corporate social responsibility); and programmes for organisational change and innovation

Participants will be invited to contribute to the co-development of a water resilience toolkit of resources for small businesses that will form part of guidance to be rolled out nationally. All contributors’ contributions will be acknowledged.

If you have any queries about this event please contact Ruth Vargo or Laura Chilver at dry@uwe.ac.uk