Water Education – Nestlé Waters

Water advocacy – from local to global

While upholding our commitment to operate in an efficient, sustainable manner, we also collaborate with local governments and other stakeholders to advocate for comprehensive, science-based laws that seek to protect water resources.

We have actively worked to bring groundwater protection laws to Maine, Michigan, New Hampshire, and the Great Lakes basin.

At the global level, Nestlé SA, our parent company, is a founding signatory of the CEO Water Mandate, an initiative led by the United Nations Global Compact focused on developing, implementing, and disclosing water sustainability and management practices. Nestlé SA has played an active role over the last three years during World Water Week in Stockholm, Sweden, participating in discussions with global leaders, experts, and practitioners about important water issues and potential solutions. In 2011, Nestlé Waters will support Project WET's "Sustaining the Blue Planet" – the first global conference focused exclusively on water education and its role in solving the world’s pressing water issues.

Promoting healthy hydration

Target 5:

Continue efforts to educate and encourage citizens to reduce their average annual caloric intake from beverages

Studies have found that calories consumed from sugared drinks more than doubled in the past 40 years. With the rise of obesity and heart disease, drinking water as an alternative to sugared beverages can reduce caloric intake. This can help maintain weight as a part of a healthy lifestyle. We are playing a role in promoting healthy hydration.

In 2009, we introduced the Beverage Pyramid to doctors, nutritionists, and consumers, based on research conducted by Dr. Barry Popkin and the Beverage Guidance Panel. Similar to the food pyramid, the Beverage Pyramid shows consumers how to achieve a healthy balance of calories from beverages and provides daily recommendations for each category, including water.

Case Study – Beverage Pyramid/WebMD Partnership

Given the obesity epidemic facing our country, we recognize a need for people to understand the importance of drinking more water and fewer sugared beverages. In 2009, we developed the Beverage Pyramid with a panel of national health experts to serve as a guide on how to make smart beverage choices as part of a healthy lifestyle. For instance, the Pyramid recommends drinking up to six cups of water each day, while limiting sweetened beverages or juice drinks to only one cup per day, as part of a healthy lifestyle.

This tool encourages people to consider calories, nutrient content, and health benefits when choosing what they drink. WebMD distributed the content through its magazine and on its website.

In 2009, we partnered with the American Heart Association (AHA) to promote heart health by sponsoring seven Start! Heart Walks and offering an on-pack promotion to raise awareness about the Start! movement. Our Nestlé^® Pure Life^® (NPL) brand also partnered with Bob Greene, founder of the Best Life Plan, to launch the Pure Life / Best Life Challenge to help people make small changes and form new healthy habits in four key areas: Eat Right, Drink Right, Get Active, and Get Green.

The following year, our Nestlé Pure Life brand unveiled the Nestlé Pure Life Pledge, which aimed to eliminate one billion calories from American families’ diets. The pledge encouraged consumers to replace one sugared beverage daily with water and for each participating family, we made a $5 donation to Healthy Kids Challenge (up to $100,000). At the end of 2010, more than 59,000 people had taken the pledge.

Case Study – American Heart Association Partnership

In 2009, we teamed up with the American Heart Association in support of its Start! initiative to encourage Americans to live heart-healthy, active lifestyles by being physically active through walking and choosing water as a smart, calorie-free beverage. In addition to a $500,000 donation, we sponsored seven Start! Heart Walks in Fort Worth, Texas; Grand Rapids, Mich.; Bethlehem, Pa.; Los Angeles, Calif.; Lewiston, Maine; Fairfield County, Conn.; and Tampa, Fla. We also provided bottled water products at each event, distributed free giveaways such as pedometers, and invited our local employees to volunteer and participate in the events.

Moving forward, we will continue to educate consumers about the importance of reducing caloric intake from beverages, and encourage drinking water instead of sugared beverages.

Water stewardship education

Target 6:

Increase the reach of water education through support and engagement with leading water education entities

We believe people have a right to quality water and that to ensure future generations have access to water, careful management of water resources is needed today. Protecting water resources begins with teaching our children about the importance of water stewardship and conservation.

We have sponsored the Project WET Foundation for more than a decade, and helped provide an array of education materials and programming to children, teachers, parents, and communities across North America and in more than 50 countries. Together with Project WET, we celebrated the theme of World Water Day 2010, “Clean Water for a Healthy World,” by providing water education kits, complete with activity booklets and posters, to classrooms in the nine local communities where we have LEED-certified facilities.

More than 1,400 kids participated in these activities at our plant locations.

Nestlé Waters Canada also provides support for water education through the Hope Mountain Centre for Outdoor Learning’s Young Stewards Program, which uses a hands-on learning approach to help grade school students develop a personal connection to the wetlands that surround the largest watershed in British Columbia.

We plan to expand our water stewardship education efforts and increase our reach of students and community members by 10% annually for the next five years. In 2010, our support for Project WET helped them reach 1.5 million students and over 125,000 educators. Over the next five years, we want to expand our reach by 10% annually. This will require an additional investment of funding and resources.

Case Study – Gulf of Maine Research Institute

Nestlé Waters participates in and supports many water education efforts around North America and the world. As part of our commitment to educating the next generation about our most critical resource, our Poland Spring^® brand formed a partnership in 2006 with the Maine-based Gulf of Maine Research Institute (GMRI) that supports LabVenture!, an immersive marine science program offering students the unique opportunity to take on the role of scientist as they experience a day at a working marine research facility. Poland Spring brand support helps GMRI provide this experience to nearly 50,000 students from every corner of the state. We are committed to ensuring access to GMRI’s LabVenture! program, as we strive to promote science literacy and inspire Maine’s future workforce to follow 21st-century career aspirations.