Turning Water-Resilient Practices into Business as Usual

Just 150 companies have the power to influence one-third of global freshwater use. But first, we need to bring them together. That’s why Dow has joined the Water Resilience Coalition (WRC) – a business-led initiative of the UN Global Compact’s CEO Water Mandate.

The newly launched WRC aims to bring together global corporate leaders to advance a shared mission: collaborating to ensure freshwater basins are able to consistently supply the freshwater on which our communities, businesses and the natural environment all depend. Dow is one of seven co-founding companies that have pledged to accomplish three overarching commitments by 2050:

• Net Positive Water Impact: Deliver measurable net positive impact in water-stressed basins, focusing on the availability, quality and accessibility of freshwater resources. Net positive water impact is defined as contributing more to basin health than what is taken from it.
• Water Resilient Value Chain: Develop, implement and enable water resilience practices across 100% of a company’s global value chain.
• Global Leadership: Raise the ambition of water resilience through public and corporate outreach, as well as inspire other industry leaders to join the Coalition. Presently, 2.2 billion people around the world are living in water-stressed areas, and the same will be true of more than half the world’s population by 2050 if no action is taken.

“As the climate crisis intensifies, the impacts on our shared freshwater resources are far reaching,” said Dow CEO Jim Fitterling. “Businesses like Dow depend on having abundant freshwater to ensure the continued safe operation of our manufacturing facilities worldwide. We have both the responsibility and opportunity to collaborate with other sectors of society on solutions, combining our resources and efforts to ensure there are sustainable and resilient freshwater resources for all..”

By coming together to share knowledge and resources, Dow and other co-founding members of the WRC seek to achieve greater impact in building the resilience of stressed-water basins around the world – prioritizing those that pose the greatest risk to local economies, industry and long-term economic prosperity. The WRC will work in partnership with a host of organizations, including the World Resources Institute, Water.org and The Nature Conservancy.

Dow’s participation in the WRC supports its 2025 Sustainability Goals, including the “Leading the Blueprint” goal. In 2018, Dow unveiled its Blueprint on Sustainable Watershed Management to a multi-stakeholder session of The CEO Water Mandate.

“Our vision through our ‘Leading the Blueprint’ goal and our Blueprint for Sustainable Watershed Management is to inspire watershed stakeholders around the world to collaborate to manage scarce freshwater more sustainably,” said Mary Draves, Dow’s chief sustainability officer and vice president of Environment, Health and Safety. “Our commitment to the Water Resilience Coalition will build on our efforts by encouraging us to work in new and meaningful ways with the stakeholders in our watersheds and to grow our impact by sharing and learning from other coalition members.”

Learn more about the Water Resilience Coalition here.