Our community water programs are designed to support healthy watersheds and sustainable programs to balance the water used throughout our production process. We do this by working on a wide range of locally relevant initiatives, such as watershed protection; expanding community drinking water and sanitation access; water for productive use, such as agricultural water efficiency; and education and awareness programs.

Together with our bottling partners, we collaborate with the World Wildlife Fund, United Nations Development Programme, Global Water Challenge, CARE, Ocean Conservancy and others to protect watersheds and support initiatives that bring clean water and sanitation to underserved areas. Since 2005, we have developed Community Water Partnerships, with more than 320 projects in 86 countries.

One of our largest collaborations is with the United States Agency for International Development and our bottling partners. Together in 2005, we formed the Water and Development Alliance to protect and improve the sustainability of watersheds, increase access to water supply and sanitation, and enhance productive use of water in 23 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. Since inception, there has been a combined investment of $29.7 million. Our project in Angola helped construct 9 community water tap stands, providing 41,200 people with access to an improved water supply.

We are working with The Nature Conservancy to review our current community water initiatives and develop methodologies for quantifying their impact. Our current estimate is that projects implemented by the end of 2010 will "replenish" approximately 42.8 billion liters of water to communities and nature, representing 31 percent of the water used in our finished beverages in 2010.

We also are involved with the Water Footprint Network to develop standards and guidelines for water footprint accounting and to define the concept of water neutrality. In 2010, we collaborated with The Nature Conservancy to take a look at water footprint s as a water resource management tool in a report titled Product Water Footprint Assessments. This work complements our engagement with the CEO Water Mandate, a joint initiative of the United Nations Global Compact and the government of Sweden. The CEO Water Mandate seeks to build an international movement of committed companies working to develop strategies and solutions to help address the water challenges facing the world today.

Learn how we're enhancing water stewardship in China »