Water is a necessity and plays a crucial role in supporting every lifeform upon the face of our planet. But even though it makes up most of our world, only 2.5 % is freshwater, moreover; it’s unevenly distributed across nations. And with our growing human population, we’re faced with an even bigger problem – a huge scarcity of clean drinking water.
India is one country that faces this problem each day. Despite being a primarily agrarian economy, where water is the lifeline of our survival; We face acute scarcity of clean drinking water supply in rural India. We’re faced with a severe water crisis with over 600 million people grappling with high water stress. More than 75% of households do not have drinking water on-premise, as for rural India; more than 84% of households lack simple piped water access. And due to the consumption from contaminated sources, millions succumb to waterborne diseases each year.
We at Danone, as a part of our ‘One Planet. One Health’ vision have taken it upon ourselves to do our bit to help alleviate this water stress by helping to preserve and restore ecosystems, wetlands, and natural water cycles.
We have developed mitigation programs and environmental roadmaps to increase our water use efficiency and enhancing wastewater quality in our operations. We are also working towards reducing water consumption, increasing circularity in our operations, and achieving higher cleanliness of discharged water through our high-level internal standard called ‘Danone Clean Water Standard.’
To make clean drinking water more inclusive across the nation, we have also collaborated to collectively build sustainable water solutions. Danone Communities and Naandi Community Water Services have come together for a joint venture to provide expertise to set up and successfully run a water kiosk.
The kiosks are managed by a local operator appointed by the community and are equipped to treat bacterial and chemical contamination which is often present in the groundwater. Additionally, yearly activities are conducted in villages and schools to raise awareness of best practices in WASH (Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene). Naandi Community Water Services launched its 647th water kiosk in 2019. The kiosks now supply safe water to over 700.000 people daily.
Our goal is to make clean drinking water accessible to all as a household norm so that the nation can grow towards a healthy happy tomorrow.
