Helping to achieve triple sustainability from water

Water is essential for our basic human needs. It plays a critical role in maintaining healthy ecosystems, in the mitigation of and adaptation to climate change, and is crucial for economic development. All the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), are linked to water. Water is vital for any environmental, social, and economic activity.

To accelerate the kind of urgent, efficient, and effective action needed to achieve the sustainable development agenda, it is crucial to address interconnectedness. We must recognise the central role of water as a catalyst for action and progress across all SDGs.

Water must therefore be at the centre of any strategy to achieve sustainability, defined in 1987 by the United Nations Brundtland Commission as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

A water sprint is a framework for answering critical business questions and challenges about the most precious and vital resource through design, prototyping, and testing ideas with users and stakeholders.

Why a water sprint?

The Design Sprint process, now a popular methodology adopted by business and startups to solve difficult problems, started from Jake Knapp during his time at Google to seek better ways for making meetings more efficient and project cycles less tortuous.

Forrester applied their rigorous Total Economic Impact™ methodology, surveying more than 60 senior executives from Fortune 1000-sized global enterprises. The exciting results of this report can be broken down into three key takeaways: alignment, speed, and value.

1. Water sprints increase team alignment and reduce risk.
2. Water sprints help your organization work faster.
3. Water sprints create sustainable value: economic, social, and environmental.