Water is a hyperlocal resource. Every catchment, watershed and basin has unique environmental, economic and social attributes that drive local supply and demand. That's why there isn't a global water price. The most meaningful scale to value water is locally. But valuing water consistently across thousands of local catchments is difficult.
A new approach is needed. Current approaches use water balance models to understand current and future water availability. Models provide a useful 'reckoner' of water stress in a broad geographical area. But model outputs are usually unvalidated and rarely verified. That makes them of limited use for decision making.
We measure local water risk. By evaluating water risk consistently across thousands of assets based on their location, we enable investors to stress-test their portfolios against future changes in local water availability, regulation and social licence. And we enable companies to assess, project and manage their exposure to these local water risks across their entire supply chain, globally.
OxEO combines remote sensing, machine learning, and climate science to identify and measure the water risk exposure of real assets, based on their unique attributes and geospatial location. We aggregate these risks to provide insights across companies, portfolios, and geographies.
Founded by colleagues at the University of Oxford, our team builds on over 10 years of research into water risk, combined with the latest approaches to data science and engineering.
Alex and Lucas explain why water stress is such a pressing problem - and what OxEO is doing to address it.
We describe our growing confidence in our key sustainability signal, water stress.