Water stewardship

Abstract

No resource is more vital to humanity than water. Yet supplies of safe water are shrinking as demand for it is on the rise. Today, 70 percent of the earth’s surface is covered by hundreds of major bodies of water. But less than three percent is fresh water — the rest is seawater. PepsiCo and the Human Right to Water In 2002, the United Nations (U.N.) Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, recognized for the fi rst time that water is a funda mental human right. “The right to water,“ the U.N. declared, “clearly falls within the category of guarantees essential for securing an adequate standard of living, particularly since it is one of the most fundamental conditions for survival.” And in July of this year, the U.N. General Assembly passed without opposition a resolution declaring the right to water an essential human right. PepsiCo has long embraced the concept of water’s importance to the communities in which it operates. In May 2009, we went a step further by formally and publicly acknowledging water as a human right, making us one of the fi rst companies of our size to do so. Why does defi ning water as a human right make a difference? As the World Health Organization (WHO) and U.N. have said, “[F]or the global community, ensuring that access to suffi cient safe water is a human right constitutes an important step towards making it a reality for everyone.” ⁴ In applying this principle to PepsiCo, we have made a strategic decision to implement protective policies and procedures, rather than apply mitigating measures reactively.