Water Direct at Economist Impact’s Water Summit

Water resilience is fast becoming a competitive differentiator. For industrial organisations, water risk is no longer a background operational concern — it’s increasingly shaped by volatility, tightening disclosure expectations, and growing scrutiny from investors and stakeholders.

That’s why Water Direct will be at Economist Impact’s Water Summit in London on Wednesday 11 February 2026.

Water Direct CEO Adam Johnson will join the panel “Designing for disruption: effective strategies for water resilience”, exploring questions such as: How do you prioritise resilience investment when infrastructure upgrades, compliance requirements and cost pressures collide? How are companies adapting to water volatility across multiple sites and regions? Which strategies are proving most effective at turning resilience into operational advantage?

Why this conversation matters right now

Many organisations still treat water as a given — available, dependable, and someone else’s problem until it isn’t. But disruption is becoming more visible, and more frequent. The cost of being unprepared is significant.

For industrial users, the challenge isn’t simply whether a site can access water. It’s understanding:

• How long each site can operate without water
• Which incidents are most likely to impact operations (loss of supply, low pressure, internal network failures, water quality/contamination)
• What ‘tolerance for disruption’ looks like in practical terms — and how that links to commercial and compliance exposure

Resilience becomes an advantage when it’s designed into operations: proportionate to risk, measurable, and ready to mobilise.

What Water Direct will bring to the panel

Adam will share practical perspectives from working with utilities and businesses on continuity planning and emergency water supply — focused on what makes resilience real, not theoretical:

1) Elevating water risk to the board agenda
Water is still too often treated as a facilities issue, when for many businesses it’s a strategic and financial risk — on a par with power disruption, cyber incidents, or supply chain fragility. The organisations that cope best define site-by-site tolerance levels, track resilience alongside other continuity metrics, and plan around clear thresholds.

2) Making the business case: from cost centre to continuity ROI
Resilience can be seen as -nice to have- until an incident proves otherwise. Adam will outline an approach that compares the true cost of downtime (lost production, penalties, reputational impact) versus the cost of practical mitigations such as pre-agreed alternative supply, timed response arrangements, on-site storage and welfare provision.

3) Using technology and data to respond faster and smarter
Most water innovation focuses on networks and treatment. Yet the -last mile- of resilience — mobilising alternative supply and coordinating incident response — is often still reactive and process-heavy. Adam will share how better digitisation can improve mobilisation, raise minimum service standards, and strengthen resilience over time.

4) Collaboration and governance: making resilience workable at scale
No single organisation can secure water resilience alone. Effective continuity depends on alignment between utilities, businesses, regulators and specialist providers — with expectations clarified before an incident happens.

Join us in London at The Economist’s Water Summit