In response to Ceres’ Valuing Water Finance Initiative Benchmark report, no firm has met 75 p.c of the “Company Expectations for Valuing Water,” which embody requirements for water amount and high quality, ecosystem safety, entry to water and sanitation, board oversight and public coverage engagement.
Eleven firms stand out as “on monitor,” although, having met 50 to 75 p.c of the standards. The very best-ranking firms had been all from the meals sector, with Cargill, Danone and Common Mills popping out on prime. I lately spoke with Truke Smoor, Cargill’s international sustainability director for water, to grasp the philosophy behind Cargill’s top-ranked water program and the place it’s headed. Listed here are my key takeaways.
Don’t let excellent be the enemy of fine
One query persistently comes up in water, biodiversity and deforestation conversations: Ought to we act with imperfect knowledge or await higher knowledge? In terms of water, massive meals firms have to maneuver ahead with imperfect knowledge, taking a regional method when farm-level data is unavailable. Firms ought to ask, “Who’re my suppliers and the way can we work collectively to cut back water impacts?”
It is smart to focus first on probably the most water-intensive substances, which range by firm. For Cargill, these embody cocoa, maize/corn, palm oil, soy and cattle merchandise. For Mars, it’s rice, maize/corn, sugar, mint and grain. There’s nobody proper reply or finest observe — the impression and alternative for decreasing water impacts will range primarily based on the amount of the ingredient being produced and water safety (each present and projected with local weather change) within the sourcing area.
Combine water throughout applications
In agriculture, a water technique targeted solely on water is insufficient. Sturdy water methods embody different elements of sustainable meals methods, comparable to wholesome soils and functioning ecosystems.
For sustainability professionals, this implies wanting throughout applications to contemplate co-benefits with out compromising the integrity of anybody venture. Cargill’s inside course of appears at tasks holistically, Smoor mentioned, and permits groups to tag them with the suitable impacts (water, land). This method permits them to calculate and monitor the related co-benefits of every venture and gives transparency throughout groups.
It’s uncommon to listen to a sustainability skilled converse publicly a couple of cross-cutting venture on this manner. Maybe the extreme stress for firms comparable to Cargill to deal with large-scale land use conversion and deforestation makes them much less prone to share small wins that lower throughout land and water, comparable to defending riparian buffers on agricultural lands. Plus, tasks with water advantages are typically native in scale and overshadowed by international carbon tasks. However complete and streamlined approaches are desperately wanted to deal with the water and biodiversity crises.
Create enabling situations for systems-level change
One space the place Cargill got here up brief in Ceres’ report was on collective motion. It’s a phrase that’s so overused within the water area that I typically discover myself questioning if persons are simply saying it to sign they belong within the dialog. So I used to be stunned by Smoor’s reply. She didn’t faux to be targeted on collective motion within the conventional sense of the phrase; somewhat, she described Cargill’s position as establishing enabling situations for large-scale systems-level change.
Why? Its footprint and provide chain is so large that even a small shift in water use in its manufacturing or sourcing practices can rapidly get to scale by itself. In 2024, she’s longing for Cargill to give attention to implementation utilizing regenerative agriculture as a pathway to enhance water resilience throughout provide chains. Different areas of early exploration embody improved grazing administration in protein provide chains and improved irrigation effectivity.
Sadly, one important water-saving answer remains to be lacking from that narrative: an general discount within the manufacturing and consumption of animal merchandise. The water footprint of meat and dairy eclipses that of different crops. Within the Colorado River basin, for instance, 55 p.c of whole water consumption is used to develop feed for livestock, totaling 1 trillion gallons per yr . We are able to and will enhance water use effectivity in our present methods, however really catalytic options will embody a shift away from our present meat-heavy diets. Firms comparable to Cargill are uniquely positioned to drive that change.
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