Nestlé Waters to expand water stewardship scheme to 20 plants

Nestlé Waters plans to certify 20 of its factories worldwide according to the Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS), a global standard for measuring business’ responsible water management.

The company has already certified four Nestlé Waters bottling facilities: one in Pakistan and three in California, including the recent certification of a factory in Sacramento, California that puts it on track to certify all five of its California bottling facilities by the end of 2017.

In recent times, the state has seen a number of water challenges facing the area, including a recent five-year drought that underlines the importance of schemes like AWS for making the bottled water industry more sustainable and responsible.

The maker of Vittel, Poland Spring and Nestlé Pure Life intends to certify additional sites in Africa, Asia, Canada, Europe, Latin America and the United States as part of its 2020 objective.

Nestlé Waters CEO Maurizio Patarnello said: ““Collaborating with AWS is a new step on our water stewardship journey, which will allow us to further engage with local communities to secure the sustainability of the local water resources where we operate. By broadly implementing this standard, we will pave the way and show that meaningful collaboration is possible for the future of water.”

Nestlé Waters is the first beverage company to achieve AWS certification, and the four plants currently certified represent half of the total number of factories worldwide to be granted AWS-certified status.

AWS CEO Adrian Sym said: “Nestlé Waters’ strategic commitment to implementing the AWS standard sets an example, demonstrating the importance of water stewardship and the business benefits it can deliver. Through our global membership, we will be calling on and supporting other major businesses to follow Nestlé Waters’ lead in making meaningful and independently verifiable contributions to our shared water challenges through implementation of the AWS Standard.”

Launched in 2014 by industry leaders, public sector agencies, academic institutes and prominent environmental conservation groups such as The Nature Conservancy and the World Wildlife Fund, AWS is the first global water stewardship standard for measuring responsible water stewardship across social, environmental and economic criteria.

It pays particular attention to the catchment area of a bottled water plant, including how companies use freshwater in a responsible way that provides benefits to the local community, while still being environmentally sustainable.