Mitigating water risks is one of the key long-term goals of Dell's 2020 "Legacy of Good" Plan. Since 2015, Dell has devoted efforts to promoting supply chain water risk control, and plans to encourage 250 to 300 water-intensive suppliers to join its water risk mitigation project by 2020. By adopting a water risk mitigation plan, Dell ensures that supply chain water risks are effectively managed.

Since the launch of the project in 2015, more than 100 water-intensive suppliers have comprehensively identified and assessed water risks linked to production processes, and taken subsequent measures to control identified risks.

Among those participating suppliers, 50 suppliers that took part in Dell's water risk mitigation program in 2015 identified a total of 167 water risks. These risks include:

- Freshwater usage risks: Significant water consumption during manufacturing, pollution of water sources, water wasted during usage, etc.

- Wastewater discharge risks: Risk of excessive wastewater discharge

- Water contamination accident risks: Wastewater treatment system failure or damage to pipelines; outbreak of fires; chemical leakages

- Natural disaster risks: Pollution due to flooding, typhoons, drought, etc.

- Other water risks

To tackle the above risks, suppliers proposed a total of 153 plans for water risk control. They adopted mitigation measures such as recycling reclaimed water; collection, purification and recovery of rainwater; refining water-saving equipment; analysis of water consumption measurements; increasing the frequency of wastewater tests; checking for pipeline leakages; and preparation and practicing of emergency action plans.

By 2016, a total of 1,029,821 tons of water had been saved, whilst wastewater had been reduced by 3,074,267 tons.

Figure 1.  Freshwater Consumption of Selected Dell Suppliers

Figure 2 – Wastewater Discharge of Selected Dell Suppliers

Several water-saving measures implemented over the course of the project pose value and implications worth studying:

Qunguang Photoelectric Co., Ltd. (Suzhou) installed energy-saving faucets in its staff dormitory area. It also replaced low-capacity flushing tanks on toilets with high-capacity tanks, as well as canteen and bathroom faucets with delayed spray faucets. Implemented measures resulted in a total of 33,288 tons of water saved in 2016.

After a water risk identification assessment, Zhongda Electronics Co., Ltd. (Jiangsu) began collecting water from their air conditioning and steam supply systems into a tank on the rooftop of the building to be used for toilet flushing, condensation and other areas. The tank installation reduced the amount of water in circulation in the air-conditioning system as well as the amount of water used for domestic purposes. These measures helped the enterprise save 8,575 tons of water in 2016.

In addition, the factory is implementing a system for rainwater collection and reuse. After filtering and purification, the collected water will be used for cleaning sanitary ware, saving another 5,000 tons of water per year.

As part of the assessment for supplier performance, Dell also requires all water-intensive suppliers participating in the water risk mitigation project to fill in and publish their pollutant release and transfer data via IPE's website. This disclosure includes information on water consumption and pollutants in effluent.

Dell will continue actuating its supply chain water risk mitigation plan to identify and assess water risks, and continue to follow up on the effective implementation of water risk mitigation plans in order to ensure that Dell's supply chain water risks are effectively managed, thus fulfilling the brand's corporate social and environmental responsibility.

(The above content was provided to IPE by the brand, who is responsible for the accuracy of the data.)