STAMFORD, CONNECTICUT — Nestlé Waters North America (NWNA) celebrated World Water Day and is embracing its 2019 theme of “Leaving no one behind” by engaging local stakeholders at many of its facilities throughout the United States and Canada on March 21 and 22.

Poland Spring celebrated World Water Day on Friday, March 22 by opening its doors in Kingfield to 18 4th graders from Kingfield Elementary School. The students toured the facility and participated in Project WET activities. From left to right Tom Bernardino, Kingfield Plant Manager, Community Relations Specialists Dana Pinkham, Mark Laplante, Natural Resource Supervisor Kingfield factory employee Dustin Henis. (Photo submitted by Poland Spring)

NWNA views transparency of its operations as a critical part of its relationships with the people in the over 140 communities where the company operates. As such, 15 NWNA sites in eight states and Ontario, Canada are opening their doors to neighbors by hosting tours of their facilities, holding roundtable discussions about water sustainability, and leading educational programs, such as globally recognized Project WET and Adopt-a-Stream activities.

Furthermore, NWNA announced recently that it has committed to investing an additional $2 million into the Ice Mountain Environmental Stewardship Fund (IMESF) in Michigan. The IMESF supports the long-term sustainability of Michigan’s Muskegon River Watershed and its ecosystems by funding environmental conservation projects and programs throughout the Watershed. NWNA founded the fund in 2002 and supported it with an initial $500,000 investment over a five-year period. The company has continued to provide donations to the fund, in varying amounts, over the past 17 years.

“Water is our business and our passion at Nestlé Waters North America. From the way we carefully manage our spring sources to our commitment to water education, protecting and preserving this precious shared resource is the most important part of what we do every day,” says David Tulauskas, Vice President and Chief Sustainability Officer at Nestlé Waters North America. “World Water Day is an opportunity for all of us to reflect on what it means to be good water stewards, and to take action – as companies, governments, non-profits, and individuals – to help ensure that our water resources are here for generations to come.”

Nestlé Waters is on a continuous journey to seek out new ways and innovative technologies to further improve and maximize efficiencies in its operations. In fact, as a result of a number of initiatives the company has undertaken over the past year, NWNA saved nearly 80 million gallons of water in 2018.

Recognizing that water is a shared resource that requires shared action, Nestlé Waters continually engages local partners to address local water issues. In California for example, the company helped launch the California Water Action Collaborative (CWAC), a platform for diverse stakeholders – including food & beverage companies, agricultural producers, and others – to come together and pursue collective action projects that will improve the availability of water for California’s people, business, agriculture, and nature. This includes a significant investment in an effort spearheaded by The Nature Conservancy to use more than 10,000 acres in Sierra Nevada at the American River Headwaters – the source for the vast majority of Sacramento’s drinking water – to test innovative methods to reduce megafires and increase the state’s water supply.

The company is also working with the Northwest Florida Water Management District and Washington County Commissioners to provide for the long-term protection of Cypress Spring in Florida and its surrounding property through a conservation easement. The acquisition covers approximately 300 acres, more than 1,000 linear feet of shoreline along Holmes Creek, and Cypress Spring.

Nestlé Waters was also the first company in North America to certify its facilities through the Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS) Standard. Its factory in Cabazon, California was also the first facility in North America to achieve an elevated Gold certification from AWS. Created and supported by prominent environmental conservation groups and industry leaders, the AWS Standard is the first comprehensive global benchmark for responsible water stewardship across social, environmental, and economic criteria. To date, 15 Nestlé Waters sites in eight countries have been certified according to the AWS Standard, and the company has committed to certifying all of its sites globally by 2025.

Globally, Nestlé Waters is hosting events that focus on the importance of sustainable water management at almost all of its sites in 34 countries. Every country where Nestlé Waters has operations will be holding at least one event. The United Nations started the observance of World Water Day in 1993 to highlight the significance of freshwater and advocate for sustainable resource management.