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December 2007
Addressing Our Planet's Water Challenges: Steps Every
Company Can Take
Column Published in the UN Global Compact's Compact
Quarterly Magazine
E. Neville Isdell, Chairman and CEO, The Coca-Cola
Company
"Water is the new carbon." -- Carter Roberts,
President and CEO, World Wildlife Fund-US
I was standing next to Carter Roberts in Beijing when he said
those words, and I could not agree more. While society is starting
to address the real problems of climate change, we have a great
deal of work to do to address our planet's water challenges.
Today, more than one billion people do not have access to safe
water. This lack of access is further complicated by decreasing
reliability of water supply, floods and droughts.
To make a difference on this global challenge, I believe that
governments, civil society and businesses must work together
as never before. For business leaders in particular, I believe
we need to speak up, stand up, and scale up our efforts on water
sustainability.
Why must business play a role? Businesses of every size and
from every industry rely on water. For some, like my company,
water is a main ingredient. For other companies, water is a
key part of the production process or the supply chain.
But water is not just important to our businesses. It is critical
to the communities we serve. We cannot have a sustainable business
unless the communities we serve are sustainable themselves.
For companies looking to be part of the solution, the CEO Water
Mandate offers a roadmap for sustainability. All that it requires
is a commitment to engage in addressing the water challenges
we all face today. The mandate recognizes that companies have
varying levels of knowledge and engagement on water resource
management, but it shares some tangible ways we can all make
a difference.
It is estimated that by 2025, two-thirds of the global population
will face severe and chronic water shortages. The truth is that
no one company, government or NGO can solve these problems alone.
We must work together, and that is one of the reasons why Coca-Cola
joined the UN Global Compact. In July 2007, I signed the Compact's
CEO Water Mandate to help improve our work within Coca-Cola
and to show our support for business scaling up collective actions
to achieve global water sustainability.
About the Mandate
The CEO Water Mandate recognizes that the private sector has
an important role to play in water stewardship, and it is designed
to spark private sector engagement in helping to address the
water challenges facing our planet. The mandate focuses on six
areas: direct operations, supply chain and watershed management,
collective action, public policy, community engagement, and
transparency.
It asks companies to begin examining their operations, to encourage
better water practices throughout the supply chain, and to work
with governments, civil society organizations, and communities
to make progress.
The Mandate recognizes that different companies are starting
at different points and face different challenges and timeframes.
The important thing is to get started today, and the CEO Water
Mandate shows companies how to do just that.
Coca-Cola's Journey
For us at The Coca-Cola Company, the CEO Water Mandate is a
natural extension of the work we are already doing on water
stewardship. We recognize that communities must be sustainable
if they are to thrive and support our customers, employees and
business.
From this understanding, we have set a number of goals. We
are working to grow our business without increasing any additional
carbon to the atmosphere. We are working to recycle or reuse
100 percent of our PET plastic bottles, not only in North America,
but around the world.
We have also set goals related to water. In June, I announced
an aspirational goal to replace every drop of water The Coca-Cola
Company uses in our products and in their production. We are
working with the World Wildlife Fund to help make progress on
that goal by --
- reducing our demand by focusing on water efficiency
in our operations,
- recycling the water we use in our manufacturing processes
so it can be safely returned to the environment, and
- replenishing the supply of water by supporting healthy
watersheds and sustainable community water programs.
In all, we are part of more than 70 community water initiatives
in 40 countries. We are also a founding partner in the Global
Water Challenge, a diverse group of governments, organizations,
businesses and individuals all focused on working together to
scale up solutions to safe drinking water. We are making progress,
but we have a long way to go. I am writing this column with
the hope that other companies will begin making a similar journey.
Steps You Can Take
So how can you get started? First, start within your company
and look for ways to reduce your water use. Next, explore
ways to recycle the water you do use. Ensure that any
water you return to the environment is treated. Then look beyond
your company's four walls for ways to replenish the supply
of water in the broader watersheds we all share.
The next step is to work through your entire supply chain.
Ask suppliers to measure their impact on our water resources.
Eventually, you can measure your progress on water goals as
you measure other business and productivity goals.
When society faces global challenges like water scarcity, we
all need to come together to leverage our individual efforts.
Business leaders have a critical role to play. Supporting the
communities we serve is not just enlightened self-interest,
it is quite literally self-interest. The CEO Water Mandate provides
a path forward to take collective action on a global scale.
I invite you to learn more about the CEO Water Mandate at http://www.unglobalcompact.org/Issues/Environment/Water_sustainability/index.html.
Neville Isdell is Chairman and CEO of The Coca-Cola
Company. Born in Northern Ireland and raised in Africa, Mr.
Isdell started working for Coca-Cola in 1966. Under
his leadership, the Company has set the aspirational goal of
becoming "water neutral" in its manufacturing facilities
and has launched a partnership with the World Wildlife Fund
to protect seven critical river basins around the world. To
learn more, see: www.thecoca-colacompany.com/citizenship/water_main.html.
See
this column as it appeared in Compact Quarterly »
View the Full Issue: "Partnerships for Development" »
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