The 12th Nestle Waters factory to receive AWS certification
One year ago today, Nestle Waters committed to certifying 20 factories to the international Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS) Standard by 2020. Nestle Waters is marking this milestone on its water stewardship journey by announcing the gold-level certification of its Dashan factory in China. The factory is the latest at Nestle Waters to achieve AWS certification and will be officially presented with its gold-level award at an AWS seminar in Beijing today.
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Yet the situation was not completely golden when Nestle Waters first acquired the factory nearly ten years ago. Located in a rural area of Yunnan Province, the local aquifer is sensitive to seasonal variations in rainfall and any excess use of water has immediate consequences for all local water users. The Nestle Waters team was quickly convinced of the need to take action to start addressing the most pressing local water challenges in a meaningful way. Initial actions included improving online monitoring of the well, more in-depth analysis of the dynamic water level and ensuring that factory water withdrawals are consistently below maximum limits. Water levels have stabilised as a combined result of ongoing actions like these.
"We have had a strengthened well management plan in place for over seven years, and we have reduced the factory's water use by at least 20% during the same period," said Boyce Wu, who led the AWS certification process at the factory. "We have also prioritised getting to know and speaking to the local community that lives in the vicinity of the factory" he elaborated.
This is not the end of the factory's journey towards sustainable management of the local water resource. Boyce and the team will apply the important lessons they have learned from their AWS certification experience. Primary among them is progress on transparency and improvement in local community relations. Transparency in sharing watershed data and closer links with communities are vital to water stewardship as they build mutual understanding of water challenges as well as trust and resolve among stakeholders to work together to address them.
With this latest certification, Nestle Waters now has a total of 12 factories certified to the AWS Standard. The company has also extended its inaugural commitment to include certification of all its factories by 2025 because AWS certification encourages its teams to constantly challenge and improve the way they manage water. Nestle Waters' commitment to water stewardship supports business's contribution to SDG 6 on water and the company's sustainable management of water.
About Nestle Waters
Founded in 1992, Nestle Waters is the water division of the Nestle Group and the No. 1 bottled water company worldwide (sales of CHF 8.0 billion in 2017). Nestle Waters employs more than 33,000 people worldwide. With over 93 production facilities situated in 33 countries around the world, Nestle Waters has a unique portfolio of more than 50 brands including Nestle Pure Life, Perrier, S. Pellegrino, Poland Spring, Vittel, Buxton, Erikli.
For more information visit http://www.nestle-waters.com .
About the Alliance for Water Stewardship
The AWS is a global membership-based organisation that promotes and recognises good water stewardship. As part of the certification process, independent auditors look at a number of factors within the groundwater basins where facilities are located and interview a number of internal and external community stakeholders. Sites that achieve certification meet either core, gold or platinum-level requirements.
Source: Nestle Waters
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