Freshwater Conservation Goal and Partnership

On June 5, 2007 at WWF's annual meeting in Beijing, China, our Chairman and CEO, E. Neville Isdell, announced our goal to return to communities and to nature an amount of water equivalent to what we use in all of our beverages and their production. This means reducing the amount of water used to produce our beverages, recycling water used for manufacturing processes so it can be returned safely to the environment, and replenishing water in communities and nature through locally relevant projects.

Reduce: We will set specific water conservation efficiency targets for our global operations by 2008. These targets will build on improvements already made in water-use efficiency over the past five years. During this period, total water use declined by more than 5 percent while sales volume increased almost 15 percent. In the same period, our water efficiency improved by more than 18 percent.

Recycle: We are committing to return safely to the environment all water used in our manufacturing processes. While water is currently treated to comply with local regulations and standards, we have wastewater treatment standards that are more stringent than applicable standards in some parts of the world. Nearly 85 percent of our operations are aligned with these higher standards and we are pledging to have our entire global system aligned by the end of 2010.

Replenish: We will expand support of a wide range of locally relevant initiatives, including watershed protection, community water access, rain water harvesting and agricultural water use efficiency. Numerous projects are already underway through our community water partnership program operating in 40 countries. We will work with WWF and others to measure the impact of these activities on water availability.

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We also are partnering with WWF to combine our international strengths and resources to help freshwater conservation throughout the world. Here is what we will do together:

Measurably conserve seven of the world's most critical freshwater ecoregions: China's Yangtze, Southeast Asia's Mekong, the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo of the Southwestern United States; the rivers and streams of the Southeastern United States; the rivers of the Mesoamerican Carribean Reef; the East Africa basin of Lake Malawi; and the Danube.
Improve water efficiency in our global beverage operations.
Encourage more efficient water use by our agricultural suppliers, beginning with sugar.
Work together on climate protection by reducing carbon emissions in our global beverage operations.
Inspire a global movement by uniting industries, conservation organizations and others in the conservation and protection of freshwater resources around the world.

Freshwater Conservation Goal and Partnership

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