Corporate Water Footprinting Conference in San Francisco Stirs Controversy
The business case for reducing corporations’ water footprints was explored at last week’s Corporate Water Footprinting conference held in San Francisco.
“Water is the new carbon,” said Gil Friend, President and CEO of Natural Logic, during his moderation of a session on “The Outlook for Water Supply Shortages.”
The conference, held December 2 and 3 and organized by Green Power Conferences, engaged corporations to discuss how to become more proactively involved in the water management of their facilities. Companies such as The Coca-Cola Company, PepsiCo International, Nestle Waters, MillerCoors, and Cadbury were represented. Professors, water experts and consultants from a variety of firms, including Business for Social Responsibility and Natural Logic, also participated in panels.
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Conference topics included:
* Implementing a Corporate Water Strategy
* Cutting Water through the Supply Chain
* A Global Water Supply Crisis: The Impacts for Business
* The Big Picture: Saving Carbon, Energy and Costs with Water Cuts
Other topics discussed throughout the two-day conference included water conservation, water recycling technologies, governance, reporting, and regulatory activity.
On the conference’s second day, a coalition of public interest organizations, including Food and Water Watch, International Campaign Against Coca-Cola and the Indigenous Environmental Network, convened at San Francisco’s Justin Herman Plaza to hold a mock trial of some of the largest conference sponsors, charging the companies with greenwashing and abusing the world’s water resources. The street theater performance, which was held blocks away from the water conference, attracted passersby and was followed by a press conference.
“Given the absence of perspectives from those without access to water, this conference appears aimed more at polishing the images of some of the world’s biggest water abusers rather than addressing the very real global water crisis,” said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch, in a press release.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported on the protest and controversies surrounding conference sponsors, including Nestle Waters’ battle over bottling water in the Siskiyou County town of McCloud.
Coca-Cola, another company represented at the conference, has also been harshly criticized for its “water neutrality” stance.
“Coca-Cola’s own concept paper on water neutrality states that the term is misleading and troublesome because it is impossible to become water neutral. Yet the company has decided that that the term makes for good marketing and is pushing it, regardless of the fact that the company continues to destroy water resources for tens of thousand of people in India,” said Amit Srivastava of the International Campaign Against Coca-Cola on the India Resource Center website.
During the street theater “mock trial,” participants held signs with the slogans “Water Neutrality = Greenwash,” “No Water Privatization” and “Corporate Water Footprinting Destroys Communities.”
But why such division? According to a source, conference organizers from Green Power Conferences refused to include members of public interest groups on panels so they could speak on the social effects of unsustainable water management.
In one sense, one can see why an already packed two-day conference targeted toward multinational corporations and focused on corporations’ integrated water strategies would not make time for individuals or organizations not directly linked to water footprinting work within corporations. And to be fair, a diversity of ideas and opinions among panelists did exist; panel members ranged from CEOs and Presidents of companies, to supply chain managers, conservation experts, and consultants.
Unfortunately, the absence of other voices–whether from Food and Water Watch or other organizations–at this conference is truly telling. For example, such voices could have been included on the Session 2 panel focused on working with local communities and stakeholders to improve water management. It is those very voices that could offer new perspectives to corporations and their consultants, and inherently benefit companies’ triple-bottom-line.
Wasn’t that the purpose of the conference in the first place?
To view photos of the Dec. 3, 2008 protest, click here.
Photo Credit: Green Power Conferences
I am so thankful for the work you do. Keep the fire to their feet and stop the privatization of water. Protect habitat, conserve water. No profit for CEO’s or lawyers.
Yikes! What on earth is News Corp doing there - I understand water is used to make paper pulp but are they there to learn from the masters of whitewashing so Murdoch redeems himself by becoming the world’s first major carbon neutral company?
I’d say Murdoch tell Roger Ailes (at Fox News Channel) to tell the screen graphics technicians to stop wasting so much electricity typing up those annoying flashing ‘Alert’ messages every 5 minutes. Or better yet shut down the whole company - that’s reduce their carbon AND water footprint. Genius!
hey you! im your former student back in 05-06 im sure you remember me. I found out that you don’t teach anymore. But yeah.. email me!