APCO Worldwide Launches Strategic Partnership with Water-Climate Intelligence Pioneer Vector Center

Washington – January 27, 2021: APCO Worldwide launched a strategic partnership with Vector Center—a pioneer in AI-powered, real-time environmental intelligence—to help clients better anticipate, mitigate and communicate around environmental and water impacts, Margery Kraus, founder and executive chairman, announced today.

Founded by journalist and water expert J. Carl Ganter, Vector Center helps companies, institutions and governments navigate water and systemic risks through its Perception Reality Engine™, a suite of AI-based tools and processes that provide real-time, contextualized insights about water issues. Vector Center’s unique approach combines state-of-the-art satellite data, social sentiment analysis, and on-the-ground investigative research to deliver focused intelligence, scenarios, contexts, and response strategies about the world’s water, food and energy supplies in a disruptive era.

“Increasingly, our clients around the world are confronted by the impacts of our changing world on their supply chains, their employees and the communities they serve,” said Kraus. “Our strategic partnership with Carl and the team at Vector Center will enable us to better anticipate environmental risks, particularly around water issues, and in turn, better advise our clients as they grapple with its myriad impacts.”

In today’s global, interdependent economy, the impact of water scarcity is felt around the world, across borders and throughout supply chains. As of 2020, about 2.1 billion people worldwide lack access to safe drinking water or reliable water service. Left unchecked, by 2040 water security will decline around the globe including areas not naturally water scarce, such as parts of Central Africa, East and Southeast Asia and Latin America. But the global economic risk today stretches beyond clean drinking water and sanitation, as businesses in so-called “Day Zero” cities—including Mexico City, Jakarta, Bangalore, London, Cape Town, and Miami—face potential business continuity challenges and supply chain disruptions in the coming decades.

“APCO is once again at the forefront of the trends and issues shaping the business environment for its customers around the world,” said Ganter, founder and CEO of Vector Center. “As water issues and climate change are intertwined and become increasingly disruptive to companies and governments, actionable business intelligence and strategic counsel will become ever more critical to success.”

Ganter served as vice-chairman of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Water Security and received the Rockefeller Foundation Centennial Innovation Award for creating new reporting models through Circle of Blue, the award-winning news and science organization that covers water crises.

The strategic partnership’s synergy of global resources and expertise will enable APCO and Vector Center to provide more holistic, better integrated, data-driven counsel to clients on environmental risk and water issues. The partnership continues APCO’s ongoing evolution to further develop more sophisticated sustainability and social impact capabilities to better serve clients in today’s changing world. APCO recently acquired the Global Philanthropy Group (GPG), a consulting firm specializing in helping individuals, foundations and corporations design and implement philanthropic strategies and programs as the latest step in the growth and expansion of its Impact & Sustainability group. In 2021, APCO will continue to bolster its sustainability and social impact prowess, culminating in the upcoming launch of a significant new initiative in this area.

For more than 35 years, APCO Worldwide has been a trusted advisor and partner to private, public and non-profit clients as they try to identify and manage new and emerging issues, challenges and opportunities around the world. Established by Kraus as a single-person operation in 1984, APCO has grown to a global advisory and advocacy communications consultancy with offices in more than 30 markets and experience working in more than 80 markets globally, providing in-depth advice, perceptive guidance and creative approaches for its clients.