Should you be investing in water?

ALTERNATIVES

The water sector is beginning to emerge as a potential long-term source of performance, but could it be just another investment fad? Annabelle Williams investigates.

Investing thematically is often fraught with difficulties. Some investment themes take decades to play out. Others rise and fall in the blink of an eye, while some themes rapidly become crowded trades. But the investment case for water is based on simple facts of scarcity, and demand. Some parts of the UK may have been beset by floods since the start of 2014, however, a World Bank report found only 3% of the world's water supply is freshwater. This means desalination plants are needed in every part of the globe. Already 700 million people in 43 countries are under ‘water stress', a...