HeloBlue! - Blue is the new Green
Our foundation is committed to environmental, sustainability and especially water protection, and we work to help companies on the path to sustainable development. We believe that protecting the environment is key to our future, and that’s why we aim to help businesses meet environmental standards, which is why we have created the HELO BLUE! sustainability label
The HeloBlue! mark, issued by the Foundation as an independent certification body, is not only a recognition, but also an effective tool that can be incorporated into public procurement and tenders, providing a concrete competitive advantage for companies, businesses and SMEs operating sustainably. In this way, we will promote the inclusion of sustainability aspects, in particular water protection, not forgetting energy challenges, in tenders and contribute to their evaluation, with a primary focus on ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) aspects, thus facilitating compliance with the sustainability reporting required by EU taxonomic standards,
Why Blue? Why is water important?
As the world’s population and agricultural needs have grown, so has the demand for water, which is seriously affecting the world’s water resources. A century ago, freshwater consumption was six times lower than today. The increase in demand and use has resulted in increasing demands on freshwater resources and further depletion of reservoirs. The graph by Chesca Kirkland uses insights from Our World in Data to break down water supply and per capita water abstraction. The latter measures the amount of water abstracted from groundwater and freshwater sources for agricultural, industrial or domestic purposes. Below we show how per capita water abstraction has increased over the past decades, based on the latest available data for each country.
Many people know that more than 70% of the Earth’s surface is water. That’s 326 trillion trillion gallons of water, yet humanity has a scarce supply. Why is this so? It is because 97% of this water is salty and therefore unfit for direct consumption. Of the remaining 3% fresh water, about two-thirds is locked up in snow, glaciers and polar ice caps. Meanwhile, just under a third of freshwater is found in rapidly depleting groundwater reserves. This leaves only 1% of global freshwater as ‘easy’ supplies from rainfall and freshwater reservoirs, including rivers and lakes. Various initiatives have been taken over the years to reduce the global water inequality gap. Efforts include promoting water conservation practices, investing in efficient irrigation systems and developing water infrastructure in regions most affected by scarcity.
You might think that our region is less affected by the problem, but this is not true. Despite the apparent increase in rainfall, our country’s water retention capacity is not very good, so water scarcity will be a serious problem for us in the near future.