Preserve water for life

In our 10-year 'Society 2030: Spirit of Progress' ESG action plan for building a more inclusive and sustainable world, we are committed to pioneering grain-to-glass sustainability, and our goal to preserve water for life is a vital part of this.

We have a strong track record as good stewards and managing our impact on water, and we continue to do more. Our strategy builds on the holistic, context-based approach of the past decade – recognising the interdependencies between our use of water and the impact on communities, supply chains and the environment. Our grain-to-glass approach supports farmers (especially smallholders), improves water use in our operations, replenishes water in water stressed catchments, provides clean water to our communities, and strongly advocates for more collective action for a better water world for everyone.

We are committed to delivering best-in-class water stewardship in our sites and operations.

We have already improved the water efficiency in our operations by 50%, by 2030 every drink we make will on average use 30% less water and by 2026 we will replenish more water than we use in all our water-stressed areas.

Water stewardship is a longstanding strategic priority for us and we are focused on preserving this critical resource, particularly in water-stressed areas. By applying a comprehensive strategy and working closely in partnership with many stakeholders, we aim to contribute to a net positive water impact in our supply chains and beyond.

We will continue to work for overall positive impact on water resources in the communities in which we work, source and sell.

We have a long tradition in investing in local communities and partnership, collective action, and collaboration is at the heart of our strategy and key to us achieving our ambition to help deliver SDG 6 - Clean Water and Sanitation for All.

We will advocate as global water pioneers to lead the business community.

We recognise the role climate change has in disrupting the water cycle, and we believe good water stewardship plays an integral part in managing climate risk. As founding members of the Water Resilience Coalition, we have pledged to help reduce impact in water-stressed basins, develop and support leading water resilience practices and raise awareness and encourage action – from the public and other businesses.

As part of our 'Society 2030: Spirit of Progress' action plan, we will build on recent water-use achievements in our operations through continuous improvement, efficiency projects and cultural change, to conserve water wherever possible. We will also continue to invest in water recycling and reuse, prioritising sites in water-stressed areas.

Water quality is equally important to us – and demands a context-based approach so we will apply a new Diageo Water Management Standard, exploring opportunities to use co-products and implementing nature-based solutions to minimise our environmental impact.

• Discharge wastewater safely and in compliance with regulatory and Diageo water quality requirements
• All our sites in our 12 priority water basins are certified to the Alliance for Water Stewardship Standard

• Reduce water use in our operations with a 40% improvement in water use efficiency in water-stressed areas and 30% improvement across the company

Our approach is to work with key suppliers to encourage best-in-class water stewardship through improved efficiency and better management, and to focus on agricultural raw material supply chains, a significant majority of which are rain-fed. In particular, and as part of our 'Society 2030: Spirit of Progress' action plan, we will integrate responsible water management and climate change resilience into our regenerative agriculture programme for 150,000 smallholder farmers.

We will encourage all key suppliers with water risk to adopt best practice stewardship – reporting water use, risks and management, and improving performance and reducing impact across their value chains.

• All raw material suppliers to achieve Diageo Water Stewardship Standard
• Support 150,000 smallholder farmers in water-stressed areas to improve their climate change resilience
• 50% of all irrigated agricultural commodities in water-stressed areas have best in class water efficiency

We are committed to working with our communities to preserve water, and our 'Society 2030: Spirit of Progress' action plan takes our ambitions even further.

Our programme includes the replenishment of all consumptive water used at our sites located in water stressed areas. This will be achieved through community water projects such as planting trees, rainwater harvesting, wetland restoration and desilting dams, as well as improving water quality and access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH). We will continue to work closely with expert partners and NGOs, and in particular our global partner WaterAid, to ensure our projects deliver measurable improvements and solutions to local water issues, and engage and empower local communities, particularly women.

We will extend our commitment to actively participate in collective action in our priority water stressed basins, joining existing and helping establish new basin-wide, multi-stakeholder collaboration to address the broader systemic water risks in these basins and, combined with our replenishment programme, contribute to a net positive water impact. We will also certify our sites in these basins to the Alliance for Water Stewardship Standard, the leading independent certification of best practice water stewardship.

As part of our 'Society 2030: Spirit of Progress' action plan, we will continue to invest in industry and multi-stakeholder initiatives, actively participating and influencing the development of best practice water stewardship, and campaigning for more organisations to take action on the global water crisis.

We are long standing members of the UNGC CEO Water Mandate Alliance for Water Stewardship, Beverage Environment Industry Roundtable and Water Resilience Coalition. More recently we were a founding signatory to the Glasgow Declaration for Fair Water Footprints at COP26. We will continue to seek out new opportunities, locally and globally, to use our leadership and experience on water to create positive change.

We are committed to working collaboratively with governments, development organisations, civil society and other private sector companies to address the global water challenge and to promote co-ordination of policy, priorities and goals.

• All our water stressed markets have water issues embedded in public policy planning
• Deliver targeted water campaigns with our employees, customers and supply chain

• Engage in collective action in all of our Priority Water Basins to improve water accessibility, availability and quality and contribute to a net positive water impact