By Denise Hamu, Samuel Barreto, and Eliana Salmazo
BRASILIA, Dec 20 2010 (IPS)

Any marketing professional who keeps abreast of global tendencies is aware of the advantages that generate added value to corporations from investing in nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Corporations strive to associate themselves with causes that enjoy the sympathy and support of clients, which increase brand recognition, and improve corporate reputation in the market and in society at large.

Certain corporations take the next step -by making these activities an integral part of a corporate vision and strategy of investing in actions that will lead to effective conservation of natural resources.

In Brazil and in the world at large, water is a top issue on the environmental agenda. Theoretically it is easy to justify classifying water as a vital natural resource because without it we cannot live now or in the future. Nevertheless, all over the world rivers are being polluted through a lack of proper sanitation measures and failure to treat sewage; water tables are being exhausted at an unimaginable rate and contaminated by inadequate drilling procedures; surface waters are being abusively removed for irrigation purposes and industrial use and are being polluted by chemical pesticides and other inorganic residues; fisheries are over exploited and some key species are under threat of extinction; wetlands, rivers and other ecosystems that regulate water are being drained off, channelled, dammed and diverted; and those ecosystems that ‘produce’ water such as springs and seepages are being rapidly degraded.

The sum of all those factors has led to water shortages, which in turn has generated conflict among water users. That is exactly the scenario we need to avoid because it is accompanied by immeasurable social, environmental and economic harm and loss.

We are fully aware that the question of water is a multi-faceted issue of enormous dimensions. To reverse ongoing degradation and increasing scarcity -further exacerbated by the impacts of climate change- we need to bring about changes to the paradigm that governs our attitude towards water. To that end we need to question our current utilitarian view of water as being merely a resource to be consumed, and take a critical look at the conventional approach to solving ‘water problems’ -by implementing engineering projects.

We need to foster an ecosystem-based approach to water resource management that places high value on rivers, river basins and wetlands because of their systemic importance in ecological processes -all the more so because guaranteeing the integrity of such environments is a decisive factor in making it possible to promote multiple uses of water.

Despite the fact that Brazil is one of the worldÂ’s richest nations in terms of water reserves -and is actually home to 14 percent of the planetÂ’s available fresh water, the single largest continuous wetland area in the world (the Pantanal), the greatest area of flooded forests (the Amazon) and an incredibly rich complements of fauna and flora- bad use and contamination of water is jeopardising those resources and a considerable portion of Brazilian society is already suffering the consequences of droughts, floods and water-borne diseases.

On the other hand Brazil has put in place some of the worldÂ’s most modern legislation on water -enacted as far back as 1997. Over a decade after the legislation came into force significant progress has been made in the management of water resources. The National Water Regulatory Agency, responsible for the implementation of the legislation has been created. There is an increase in civil society participation and decentralisation; and water resource management instruments like the River Basin Plans have been implemented. In 2006 Brazil also became the first Latin American country to implement a National Water Resource Plan.

Even so, the system needs to advance further if it is to achieve the intended recovery and protection of water, to stimulate its multiple uses as a way of boosting the economy and above all, if it is to guarantee the nationÂ’s water and food security. For that advance to take place the stateÂ’s role in encouraging best practices, and fostering greater levels of social participation including that of big water users like companies, needs to be reinforced.

What we find however, is that in Brazil companies and corporations have adopted a very small role in the process of actually managing water resources -a matter for concern considering that companies are part of the solution in the quest for sustainability.

It is against that backdrop that our partnership with AmBev stands out. AmBev is one of BrazilÂ’s biggest water users and if we consider the group it belongs to as a whole, it is one of the biggest water users in the world.

AmBevÂ’s effort to improve and increase corporate responsibility in the socio-environmental field is the basis of its partnership with WWF-Brazil by means of the Cyan Movement. The innovative aspect here lies in the fact that, instead of waiting for governments to shoulder what is, after all, their responsibility -the onus of regulating and managing water resources- our partnership spontaneously takes on co-responsibility for the process.

AmBev has to respect legal requirements concerning its use of water in its business. Within the scope of their partnership WWF-Brazil proposed that they should go beyond that and support the participation and involvement of civil society in taking care of water and strengthening water resource management mechanisms, by adopting the area of the Corumbá River basin. The area is located in the Brazilian Cerrado savannas and is one of the most threatened ecosystems on earth. In addition to its rich biodiversity, the Cerrado provides important environmental services like producing water to supply human populations.

The project will not only be unfolding capacity building activities directed at qualifying civil society, but will also support mechanisms associated with the Paranoá Basin Committee to foster good water governance in the region. Good water governance is one of the best ways to stimulate sustainable water use.

Another aspect that was added to the project, is the calculation of the Water Footprint of the companyÂ’s production chain in collaboration with a local research institute. AmBev is in fact the first beverage manufacturer in Latin America to adhere to the Water Footprint Network. That calculation, once made, will make it possible to identify more efficient measures to improve water-use processes not only in the AmBev factories themselves, but also along the production chain.

Those initiatives may very well expand the performance of the GroupÂ’s production system, and bring about important results in the conservation of natural resources and the enhancement of good water resource governance. All of these actions have significant effects and take on a dimension that transcends corporate responsibility -the partnership is imbued with citizenship.(END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

(*) Denise Hamú is CEO WWF-Brasil, Samuel Barreto is Head of Freshwater WWF-Brasil, Eliana Salmazo is Corporate Relations Coordinator WWF Brasil.

This column is part of a series of opinion articles and interviews about corporate social and environmental responsibility, supported by Anheuser-Busch InBev.

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