Nestlé Waters joins “water positive” club with $130m investment

Nestlé Waters will invest $130 million into over 100 projects in a bid to restore local water cycles around its 48 global water sites.

Water positive impact

To expand its water stewardships effort and become water positive, the company's proposed plans will focus on each of the Nestlé Waters sites to ensure “nature retains more water than the business uses in its operations”.

Over the course of the next four years, Nestlé Waters will invest in local water cycle projects that will focus on better water management and improving existing water infrastructure.

The World Resources Institute's Volumetric Water Benefit Accounting (VWBA) methodology will be used to measure the success of the projects. Each of these projects will be tailored to Nestlé Water's individual locations water challenge, for example:

• At its Buxton site in Derbyshire, UK, a land conservation and natural flooding management project to protect the local water cycle
• At its Vittel site in Vosges, France, Nestlé is looking at a river restoration project
• At the Nestlé Pure Life site in Benha, Eygpt, the company is aiming to improve the transfer of water treatment, filtration and pipeline infrastructure for municipal water supply.

Nestlé Waters is also planning to work with local water users, communities and global authorities to classify and develop more projects such as these.

Building on a 2017 commitment

"As a business with a long heritage of nature protection and water stewardship, we want to go beyond the conservation of water sources to help regenerate and restore water cycles in the areas where we operate,” said Cédric Egger, head of sustainability at Nestlé Waters.

This new initiative is set to build on the company's 2017 commitment to certify all of its waters site by the Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS) by 2025.

"Climate change, rainstorms, flooding and overuse are some of the biggest threats that Nestlé Waters will have to tackle."

With another deadline of 2025, this new project from Nestlé Waters will see the company tackle the challenges presented by unique local water cycles, including growing climate change related threats, including rainstorms, flooding and overuse.

Apple and Amazon recently made big pledges to curb their respective water use after the growing concerns of water intensity in the IT and data-storage industries.

Following suit, but work to do

Nestlé Waters 2025 ambitions follows other global companies seeking to not only reduce their water footprint but also have a positive effect on their water use.

Earlier this year, Google released its Environmental Report 2020 showing how the company is reducing its global environmental footprint using reclaimed water.

"The company holds the right to draw 2.3 million gallons of water from the springs but it was found to have drawn 58 million gallons."

However, the new goals from one of the world's biggest water bottlers also follows a major controversy the company experienced in 2017. It was found that Nestlé was taking more water than its share from the California springs.

The company holds the right to draw 2.3 million gallons of water from the springs but it was found to have drawn 58 million gallons.

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