Jobs for Drops: Responding to South Africa’s worst drought

Jobs for Drops: Responding to South Africa’s worst drought

By Songo Didiza

Image by Inhabitat Parts of South Africa are currently experiencing severe droughts. Whilst other parts experience drought for months, followed by flooding. Well those in the know say that the drought in the Western and Eastern Cape is the worst one in the past 100 years. Water pundits are already warning us of the new normal: continuous water scarcity as the country heads towards a drier and hotter climate. One of the areas that have been the hardest hit is the area of the Western Cape. The whole of the Western Cape has been declared a disaster area‚ with towns like Beaufort West edging closer to running out of water completely. The City of Cape town, which is also the largest municipality in the province, has already started working on water augmentation projects‚ which include desalination‚ groundwater extraction‚ and water reuse which will hopefully come online before the taps are anticipated to run dry.

The Western Cape also happens to be South Africa’s leading tourist destination. In 2016 its tourism sector directly supported 319,227 jobs — up by 25,508 jobs in 2015 — and over the same period, tourists spent well over $2.7-billion in the local economy.

Earlier this month we hosted a #GreenCafe event where we invited a few industry experts and the general public to speak openly about how society can start addressing the water problem using practical solutions. In this case we chose a restaurant as an appropriate context to narrow into this problem since food is something that we all have in common. We used the response of the restaurant business to create some meaningful discussions on how we can mobilise for practical solutions to address the wider problem.

From these discussions it became clear that cost of water is negligible for a majority of businesses (as it was observed with the electricity prices in the early 90s) however it is the cost of NOT having water that poses a significant financial risks for business continuity and human survival. This is what gives rise to significant revenue losses (for businesses) and a risk of illness spread(for households).

Let’s face it. A good soak in a bathtub or a full swimming pool or a flushing toilet are all things we should all be able to enjoy. And not just as a memory! From the panel discussions the sentiment was very clear and that is the “water crisis” has presented an investment opportunity for society to change their relationship with water usage.

The way forward..

We dont have to look very far for inspiration in this regard . South Africa finds itself in a place where its still consolidating the economy from the energy crisis of the mid-2000s. It was in fact the energy crisis that gave birth to multi-billion dollar energy services industry, which effectively comprise a competitive mix of renewable energy and energy efficiency services. The energy crisis also stimulated investment into efficient design in technology, manufacturing, building services, policy and regulation processes.

And now with the advent of the water crisis some of energy services are already augmenting their current business models to assist government and society at large to address the water problems being experienced in areas like the Western Cape and Gauteng provinces.

The energy services model has not been explored to its full potential. There is a potential mentorship and economic development towards emerging businesses to achieve further energy and water savings — and entrepreneurial and job creation. In the water scenario we can have a WetSCo model.

In essence, we are saying instead of sending society and tourists into a bounty of panic government and political leaders should be preaching the message of “Jobs for Drops”. By this we mean businesses can use the water supply shortages as an opportunity to start monitoring their energy and water consumption through audits; partnering with training institutions to educate their staff on water saving processes; investigating various water efficient technologies as examples. We haven’t even started discussing programs to repair infrastructure piping and storm water drainage; and the job creation around these. These are the type of interventions that generate job creation.

Imagine the amount of runoff water that can be saved from fixing all the leaks in all the old buildings.

In the building services sector we are already starting to see a growing demand to introduce broader resource efficiency programmes such as retrofitting of old buildings with efficient technologies — both water and energy — onsite recycling and even food production into facilities (e.g. vegetable gardens on rooftops and walls of buildings). So the solutions to the water challenges we are experiencing are already in front of us. www.greenbdg.org.za www.goingreenconference.org