TG - SABMiller: more beer from less water

This week I write about water.  Water is extremely important to livelihood and excessive use of water is a form of waste.  As written in SABMiller: more beer from less water, executives of SABMiller, the company that brews such beers as Ghana’s Club Premium Lager and Castle Milk Stout, have decided to acknowledge water scarcity.  The way they are doing this is during the period of 2008-2015, they are cutting water usage by 25%.  This may sound like a small number, but this is a quarter of their water usage; significant for a company that depends on water for its existence.

Research has given evidence of water scarcity increasing to a 40% gap between water supply and demand by the year 2030.  This demonstrates the importance for companies like SABMiller, which depend on water for all levels of production, to watch their level of sustainability.  The thing is, water scarcity has numerous risks, including ‘competition for resources, higher costs, reduced water quality and the possibility that shortages will limit production’.  This means as scarcity increases, so does the privatization of something that even the United Nations has declared a human right (I remember reading about this during my time in Ghana in summer 2010).

Recognizing that cutting water usage is not enough, SABMiller employees are also working with local communities to protect shared watersheds.  Also, employees are collaborating with NGOs, governments, communities and industry coalitions, taking part in the water debate, sharing lessons they learn and encouraging better oversight of water.

In 2009, the company teamed up with WWF and GIZ, the German Society for International Cooperation (note the acronym is for the actual German name, not the English translation of the name), to form the Water Futures partnership.  This partnership addresses some of the most urgent water risks facing SABMiller's local businesses, surrounding communities and ecosystems.  Though I have my doubts when it comes to corporate responsibility, the goal of Water Futures is to show that the private sector can engage in promoting sustainable management of resources.  The initiative of reducing water consumption has already begun to make a huge difference, as can be seen in such places as Rajasthan, where groundwater is estimated to have risen by 31 feet so far, nearly the amount consumed by SABMiller that year.

I will probably be sceptical of companies for a long time, but the harder they work at their social and environmental responsibilities, the better.  I would much rather be proven wrong about my skepticism than be proven right.

David Ormsby-Gore quote:

It would indeed be the ultimate tragedy if the history of the human race proved to be nothing more noble than the story of an ape playing with a box of matches on a petrol dump.