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SABMiller

Beer production

The Water Futures Partnership

We have worked with SABMiller, the world’s second largest beer producer, and GIZ, part of the German government’s development agency, on the Water Futures Partnership since 2009.

Over the last three years, we have worked together in Peru, South Africa, Tanzania and Ukraine to address the issues of water scarcity and pollution faced by SABMiller’s local businesses and the surrounding communities.

The partnership builds on SABMiller and WWF’s water resource management work in Colombia, Honduras and El Salvador. To influence wider change, we are also seeking to expand the partnership to more countries and to include other agencies and companies.

Dry river bed

What we’re doing

The partnership follows four phases:

  • water footprinting - understanding how much water is consumed to produce beer in SABMiller’s local businesses;  
  • water risk assessment - investigating how pollution and water scarcity are affecting SABMiller’s local business and other local water users;  
  • reducing water risks - through collective action with local people, companies and agencies; and  
  • spreading good practice to influence wider change.

Why we’re doing it

Graham Mackay, CEO at SABMiller, says:

“Water is neither consistently well-managed nor appropriately valued globally. This has led to a crucial shared resource becoming a shared risk for governments, businesses and populations across the world.

"We believe that collaboration between business, governments and NGOs is the only way to tackle this. We want our pioneering partnership with WWF to serve as a catalyst for change, by inspiring others to act to secure global water supplies.”

Ellen Kallinowsky, senior adviser at GIZ, says:

“This partnership builds on SABMiller’s leadership but it can only succeed if relevant stakeholders actively engage. The mobilisation of other partners, both at global and local level will be the true challenge – and, we hope, achievement – of the project.”

Cat Moncrieff, Freshwater Programme Manager at WWF-UK, says:
 
"We are delighted to partner with SABMiller - working together we have a unique opportunity to engage the private sector in tackling water resources issues for the benefit of people and nature, as well as businesses.
 
"SABMiller is aware of the risks it faces due to water scarcity and has set stretching targets to reduce its own water consumption. However, SABMiller is going further than many other businesses and is looking beyond water efficiency savings in its breweries. It recognises that many of the root causes of water risks faced by the business - such as poor water governance, agricultural land use management and climate change - cannot be mitigated through solitary action alone, and need to be tackled through collective action by many water users in the locality."
 

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