How water stewardship is central to business and climate resilience

Water stewardship is a commitment that flows throughout our business at Diageo. Water is not just a resource; it’s the foundation of our products, our greatest climate risk and for these reasons, a critical pillar of our Spirit of Progress goals.

Having led Diageo’s work on water during my time in India, and now continuing that journey across Africa, I’ve seen first-hand how water resilience can uplift communities, safeguard ecosystems and strengthen our business.

I’m incredibly proud of the progress we’re making in delivering best-in-class water management across our operations and our communities. We have a comprehensive strategy that focuses on three key areas: water accessibility, availability, and quality both within and outside our operations.

Over the past five years, we’ve focused on and made progress across:

Empowering communities: Through our water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) initiatives, we’ve provided access to clean water facilities to over 500,000 people globally since 2020 - including 164,000 in FY25 alone across nine countries, from Uganda to India. This effort underscores our dedication to improving lives by ensuring essential resources are accessible.

Efficiency breakthroughs: By deploying AI-driven water monitoring and closed-loop systems and other investments, we’ve improved water efficiency at sites in water stressed areas by 20.6% and 15.8% globally since 2020 - saving billions of litres annually. These technological advancements highlight our innovative approach to water as a life source to be better managed.

Replenishing more than we use: Our replenishment ambition is becoming a reality. Projects including Turkey’s water storage project and Mexico’s leak repair programme contributed to the replenishment of over 3Million m³/year in F25 alone, and since 2021 we have completed over 150 replenishment projects in our water stressed markets.

Collective action: We’ve partnered with governments, NGOs, communities, and other companies across eight countries through our collective action programme, across 9 out of 12 of our priority basins. In Kenya, as basin champion, we’ve helped plant over 580,000 trees, construct over 600 water pans, install 27 drip irrigation kits, and establish over 52,500 metres each of terraces and grass strips, as well as 17,500 metres of riverbank buffer zones to support sustainable water and land management.

But we’re not stopping there. We’ve refreshed our water strategy this year with three priority areas:

Scaling replenishment: In Jalisco, Mexico, our tequila distilleries now recycle 100% of water withdrawn, while solar-powered irrigation in Türkiye’s Kuskan project revives 600 hectares of farmland. Going forwards, we plan to start replenishing water used by key suppliers and third-party operators in our priority basins.

Expanding collective action: Partnering with WaterAid, The Nature Conservancy and many others, we’re expanding our collective action projects from 12 to 20.

Integrating nature-based solutions: In Ireland, regenerative farming for Guinness barley cuts water use by 30%, while our Agave Fund in Mexico supports drought-resistant crops. We will also leverage our brands and innovation pipeline to support our water ambition.

This World Water Week let us all remember when we protect water, we protect our business, our communities, and build our climate resilience. Our water stewardship evolves with our business, but its importance remains paramount.

Read our updated Diageo Water Stewardship Strategy here and explore more of our progress in the Annual Report, which includes key water achievements from across our global operations.