Ceres Aqua Gauge is an online Excel-based tool that helps inform and strengthen companies’ water management strategies and allows investors to evaluate a company’s water management activities against detailed definitions of leading practice.

Aqua Gauge offers a framework designed to help companies and investors determine the effectiveness and thoroughness of companies’ water management practices. It features four categories of corporate water practices: 1) Measurement, 2) Management, 3) Stakeholder Engagement, and 4) Disclosure. Each of these activities is divided into a number of sub-categories and specific activities (e.g., data gathering, policies & standards, etc.). Each activity is divided into four stages of increasing maturity all the way up to “Leading Practice”. This allows companies and investors to evaluate the maturity of corporate water management practices and to determine how those practices might be improved.

The Aqua Gauge is designed to enable both quick and more thorough analysis of water management practices. The “Quick Gauge” describes core water management activities and allows for a high-level assessment. The full Aqua Gauge expands upon this to provide a more comprehensive evaluation. The tool also offers several case studies that give real-life examples of leading corporate water management practice.

HOW TO USE THIS REPORT
This report introduces experts and newcomers alike to the Ceres Aqua Gauge™—a new framework for assessing corporate management of water risk. The report provides a broad overview of how competing freshwater demands and limits to supply are beginning to affect corporate financial performance in a range of industrial sectors.