BOSTON — A conference here this week of environmentally oriented investors heard that “water is the new oil” and that businesses relying on increasingly scarce water supplies are no longer taking it for granted, reported an April 29 article on the “Green Tech” blog of CNetNews.com.

Attendees at the Ceres Conference heard Chris Williams, director of water programs for World Wildlife Fund, say, “What’s different today is that the global business community is seeing water as a business risk and core to  their operations,” the article said.

They also heard a number of statistics, such as the fact that the electronics industry consumes 24 percent of the available water in California and that the state uses 6.5 percent of its electricity to pump water. Also mentioned was the estimate that the number of people in the world without access to safe water will double by 2020.

Speakers and panel participants included Jeffrey Connelly, vice president of GE Water & Process Technologies, who told the conference that GE will call for more conservation of water and release new products to help customers reduce water consumption and offer usage benchmarks, according to the article. Later this month, GE will make a series of announcements on water to mark the third anniversary of its Ecomagination campaign, promoted by CEO Jeffrey Immelt, the article added.

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