Water management and Nestlé

Why is water management so important?

Over 1 billion people lack access to water and over 2.4 billion lack access to basic sanitation. This water crisis is largely our own making. It has resulted not from the natural limitations of the water supply or lack of financing "Water plays a pivotal role for sustainable development, including poverty reduction. Given the importance of water to poverty alleviation, human and ecosystem health, the management of water resources becomes of central importance. Currently, over 1 billion people lack access to water and over 2.4 billion lack access to basic sanitation. This water crisis is largely our own making. It has resulted not from the natural limitations of the water supply or lack of financing and appropriate technologies, even though these are important factors, but rather from profound failures in water governance."

This is the on-line version of the Nestlé Water Management Report, focusing on three areas:

• As the world's largest food and beverage company, we rely on access to clean water in order to conduct our business and to produce quality products for our consumers. Our concern is for our operations, but also for the sustainability of water resources for the future.
• We document the actions taken with regard to our food manufacturing operations where we have direct control, and also efforts we have made to improve access to clean water in indirect ways outside our own direct business activities.
• We want to obtain stakeholder input and explore future directions to pursue in order to contribute to improvements in the world's access to clean water. As a company we utilise a very small fraction of the world's water. but by working with others, we believe we can have a positive impact.

• Water Indicators - 2006
• Consolidated Nestlé Environmental Performance Indicators 2002 - 2006
• Summary of Nestlé's Water Management Report