Enhancing water security for all.
By Andre Fourie, Global Director, Water Sustainability, AB InBev; Stuart Orr, WWF Freshwater Practice Lead; Andrea Erickson, Acting Global Water Manager, The Nature Conservancy
How to enhance water security for communities, cities and companies around the globe is one of the most complicated — and crucial — issues facing the world. And the IPCC’s recent 1.5-degree report ramped up the urgency as it scientifically outlined how our warming world will increase both water shortages and extreme weather events. Obviously, there is no single solution. But there is a pathway that will increase our chances of success — a pathway that is paved with partnerships.
That is why the three of us came together to write this — three people from different organisations, from different parts of the world, with different styles and different missions. Because AB InBev, the world’s leading brewer, is signing up to major global partnerships with The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and WWF, which will accelerate water security in some of the most world’s most high-risk watersheds.
These partnerships are designed to solve problems at a significant scale — signalling the beginning of a movement to accelerate water source protection worldwide.
No one is under the illusion that it is going to be easy. And yet, here we still are. Two environmental organizations — that some might perceive as competitors — and a multi-billion-dollar global corporation whose interests might be seen by some to conflict with those of the environment.
Indeed 20, or even 15 years ago such an alliance would have been surprising. Global corporations were targets for campaigners and activists — on issues of resource management, human rights, corruption — the list goes on. And charities, battling for funding and influence, were gladiatorial rather than collaborative.
As things thawed between the private sector and civil society, relationships initially centred around philanthropy, fundraising or employee volunteering — all of which still have value. But leadership from both sides began to realise that they could work together, in the true meaning of partnership, to bring about changes from which they could all benefit, including transforming corporate approaches to water.
Global food and drinks companies joined forces with the likes of WWF and TNC to steward the water sources on which their operations relied, at the same time benefiting ecosystems, biodiversity and communities. Many of these projects are still running and having a meaningful impact.
The scale of the challenges we face and the speed at which they are growing require a further evolution in our partnerships. This year we witnessed devastating heatwaves and floods in Japan, wildfires in Greece, California and the Arctic circle, and an unprecedented drought in the UK. Cape Town has avoided ‘Day Zero’ for now but, it is a very real threat for many cities around the world.
But change has also occurred in more positive ways. Thanks to the 2015 Paris Accord, we have global consensus on the need for action to address Climate Change, and the UN Sustainable Development Goals adopted the same year by 150 nations, created a framework for eliminating poverty, hunger, inequality and environmental degradation, including targets to address the crisis facing freshwater ecosystems.
In this context, all actors — companies, civil society and the public sector — are evolving deeper, more integrated partnerships designed to solve problems in a purpose-led way that is commercially compelling, creates value for society and finds ways to capitalise on the interconnected nature of many of the challenges.
In our developing triumvirate, our shared vision is that of a water-secure future: where people, commerce and nature all have reliable, equitable access to clean water. There are variances in our motivations, but the outcome is singular. Ours is not a formal arrangement: there is no three-party MOU or contract with deliverables — although AB InBev’s partnerships with WWF and TNC will have specific deliverables... But there is a shared sense of urgency and purpose, and a consensus that the current pace of change is insufficient.
To achieve our vision of a water secure world, we can no longer think on a project-by-project, community-by-community basis. We must identify — and engage — the channels, actors and mechanisms that can be leveraged to effect change on a meaningful scale.
We know who and what they are, and we are already having encouraging conversations with companies from a wide range of sectors, financial institutions, water utilities, city planning teams and national ministers of policy, urban planning, health.
We are different organizations advocating for the same things: for natural, or ‘green’, infrastructure to be understood and valued and for it to become part of mainstream infrastructure planning and investment; for large corporations to appreciate the role that well-managed natural infrastructure — including rivers and wetlands — can play in long-term business resilience and commercial success; and for mainstream capital and investment to be mobilized towards natural infrastructure as an effective and cost-efficient way to harness the power of nature to accelerate the move to a water secure world.
