Analysis: Heineken brews up a better report.
Sustainability pervades the Dutch brewer’s first integrated report from cover to cover but it could use its global presence to be a greater advocate for action to tackle climate change, says Peter Statham Fierce competition among brewers has transformed the global beer market.
And it’s serious about sustainability.
For the first time, Heineken has integrated sustainability information in its annual report and no longer publishes a separate sustainability report.
In contrast to some attempts to integrate reporting, Heineken does a good job, including sustainability references almost from cover to cover.
And the brewer has saved €13.5m (£11.5m) through water efficiency projects since 2009, a clear business benefit.
‘Without water Heineken wouldn’t exist’ The Sustainability Review, a section within the report, provides an overview of progress against Brewing a Better World, Heineken’s sustainability strategy, consisting of six areas: water, CO2, sourcing, responsible consumption, health and safety, and communities.
Perhaps it’s time for absolute water targets, or, even better, science-based water targets that will contribute to avoiding a global water crisis.
Heineken ‘should raise its voice’ Considering the potential impact of climate change and water scarcity on Heineken’s business, I’d like to see more about how it’s using its influence, and presence in 190 countries, to advocate for climate action while it is “brewing a better world”.
pete.statham@contexteurope.com See also: Heineken shows its bottle on climate Heineken sustainability report beer Integrated reporting SDGs water management

Four graduate students in the Center for Emerging Media Design and Developement master’s program spent three days helping Circle of Blue produce “WATERSHED: Replenishing Water Values for a Thirsty World,” hosted by Pope Francis at the Vatican during World Water Week.
During the event, EMDD students updated WATERSHED and the Blue Roots Project’s social media accounts through live coverage and tweets.
“From the start, BSU’s team has been at the front lines, from collecting water stories from around the world, to literally sitting at the table with these global thinkers in Rome to shape a better water future through design, media, networks and creative passion,” said Carl Ganter, co-founder and director of Circle of Blue.
In 2010, Ball State students began working on Circle of Blue’s Choke Point U.S., an in-depth package of reporting and information graphics about the competition between water and energy in the United States, Ganter said.
Palilonis said Ganter reached out to her a year ago to see if students could help Circle of Blue more.
This page offers educational materials for K-12 teachers around the world interested in adding the value of water and World Water Week discussions into lesson plans.
“They like to feel good about themselves, whether that is by supporting a charity or sharing a story about themself.” In response, the team developed a social media campaign called #MyWaterStory to make people aware of water issues by sharing personal stories.
Circle of Blue liked the student’s idea so much, Palilonis said Ganter suggested the students turn it into a global campaign, rather than one that only aims to reach people around Indiana.
She said her team created various prompts and asked people to respond using #MyWaterStory on social media, worldwatervalues.org and bluerootsproject.org.
EMDD plans to continue educating people through The Blue Roots Project.

New research demonstrates the real-world potential of providing clean drinking water for millions of people who struggle to access adequate clean water sources.
Until now, however, they couldn’t be used for sieving common salts used in desalination technologies, which require even smaller sieves.
Previous research at The University of Manchester found that if immersed in water, graphene-oxide membranes become slightly swollen and smaller salts flow through the membrane along with water, but larger ions or molecules are blocked.
The pore size in the membrane can be precisely controlled which can sieve common salts out of salty water and make it safe to drink.
When the common salts are dissolved in water, they always form a ‘shell’ of water molecules around the salts molecules.
"This is the first clear-cut experiment in this regime.
We also demonstrate that there are realistic possibilities to scale up the described approach and mass produce graphene-based membranes with required sieve sizes."
Mr. Jijo Abraham and Dr. Vasu Siddeswara Kalangi were the joint-lead authors on the research paper: "The developed membranes are not only useful for desalination, but the atomic scale tunability of the pore size also opens new opportunity to fabricate membranes with on-demand filtration capable of filtering out ions according to their sizes."
This technology has the potential to revolutionise water filtration across the world, in particular in countries which cannot afford large scale desalination plants.
More information: Tunable sieving of ions using graphene oxide membranes, Nature Nanotechnology, nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/nnano.2017.21

Water tankers (private and BWSSB) are being sent to KR Puram, Gangondanahalli, Sanjeevani Nagar, Sahakar Nagar, Padarayanapura, Bapuji Nagar, Gurguntepalya and Peenya once in three days, while the BWSSB supplies water once in a week.
"The borewells have dried up in KR Puram and Sanjeevani Nagar.
The BWSSB has already begun drilling borewells in these areas.
BWSSB sells water to private contractors at Rs 90 for 1000 litres of water and Rs 540 for one tanker.
Pradeep Yashwath, a resident of Sonnenahalli in KR Puram, said that the residents of his locality have been complaining to the BWSSB every day.
How can we pay Rs 600 every day for water to the private tanker companies?"
People living on the west side of Mori Gate, have absolutely no water shortage, as their apartment complexes and gated communities have 24×7 water supply due to the borewells.
People have always been dependent on tanker sand borewell water.
Residents of this area do not have space in their homes to store large quantities of water and end up paying Rs 10 for a small pot of water every day.
Four big pots of water and one drum will last us for two days as we are a family of six," says Prasadu, a resident, while adding that the water rationing had begun three months ago.

A company aims to raise 500 000 days of clean water to help with the water crisis in South Africa.
Procter & Gamble SA has announced it has a goal to raise 500 000 days of clean water, as part of the global P&G Children’s Safe Drinking Water Programme, an which initiative looks to tackle water issues currently facing South Africa.
As we have seen, flash flooding, as a result of drought, can also wreak devastation on underprivileged communities.
Since 2004, the programme has provided more than 11 billion litres of clean water to desperate communities around the world.
To help address the problem of access to clean water in Africa, in the last 12 years, the programme has managed to provide over 6 billion litres of clean drinking water to 40 countries on the African continent through its P&G water purifying packets.
“Clean water does not only quench thirst, promote health and prevent unnecessary deaths, it means more people can work and enhance productivity.
In fact, the World Health Organisation has estimated that every one US dollar invested in clean water, sanitation and hygiene generates four US dollars in increased productivity, which enables sustainable and equitable economic growth,” said Mabaso, addressing the long-term effects of water in destitute communities.
This will assist in achieving one of the United Nation’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goals – ensuring availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.
The CSDW continues to provide clean water to our neighbouring countries as well, to ensure that even more communities have their lives enhanced by this basic human right,” Mabaso concluded in his statement.
P&G’s clean water programme comes at a crucial time in South Africa.

Tasks set for water supply.
– Cuttack to get more than 100 kiosks Cuttack, April 2: The Public Health Engineering Division (PHED) has initiated a slew of measures to ensure undisrupted drinking water supply in the city this summer.
The PHED and the Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) have jointly planned to deploy water tankers in dry areas, install new tube wells and repair dysfunctional ones and also set up a control room to monitor distribution of safe drinking water.
Water tankers of the civic body will regularly fill these plastic tanks with drinking water.
The tanks will be placed by the end of this week after a consultation with the councillors of all the 59 wards," executive engineer of PHED, Cuttack, Sushant Ghadei told The Telegraph today.
While 44 of the 59 wards are covered under piped water system, the rest remain partially covered.
So far, the CMC was responsible for supplying drinking water to 29 wards of the city (wards 1 to 29) and PHED the remaining 30 wards (wards 30-59).
Member of CMC’s standing committee for public health, sanitation and water supply Ranjan Kumar Biswal said: "As per the joint agreement with the PHED, we have asked them to place at least two plastic tanks in each of 59 wards to be filled up by tankers.
Biswal said the PHED has also been asked to make functional all the cold water supply units that have been set up across the city with MPLAD or MLALAD funds.
"But taking permission from the municipal authority to set up kiosk has been made mandatory," Biswal said.

Maya and Ancestral Puebloans Providing Clues on World Water Crisis.
Reservoirs and aquifers are drying up, a consequence of overuse, and climate change triggering periods of drought around the planet.
Using water the way we have in the past simply will not sustain humanity in future.” Researchers from University of Cincinnati’s anthropology, geography and geology departments have been exploring rainforests and deserts around the globe in an attempt to find out how ancient humans changed their environment to manage the water supply.
“We begin by asking, ‘What is water to humans, how do we engage with it and how does the environment engage us?” explained Vernon Scarborough, professor and department head in UC’s Department of Anthropology, in a press release.
Other tests provided insight into how the Puebloans supplied themselves with water.
“During the rainy season when floodwaters hit, the Puebloans would capture runoff water from small canyons known as the rincons and local periodic streams such as Chaco Wash and Escavada Wash.” Researchers in the UC team also explored the Guatemalan rainforests around Tikal, a Maya site that was inhabited around the same time as Chaco Canyon.
“Similar to Chaco Canyon, we found geochemical evidence for corn fields situated in specific environmental niches at Tikal”, said Nicholas Dunning, a UC professor of Geography.
“Essentially, they may have affected a change in their own climate”, said Scarborough.
However, their research also highlighted how the Puebloans and Maya affected their environment and landscape.
Such investments in building massive dam projects today is a costly expenditure of money and time that might well benefit from views of the past.

An acute water scarcity has hit Pishegu, a farming community in the Karaga district of Northern region putting residents’ lives and properties at risk. Pishegu is one of the many communities in the region where the Water Company Limited is ineffective and residents have been living decades without clean water. The community with a total population of 2500 locals are in routine competition with animals for water from a dried up dam which medics have declared unsafe for consumption. The only reliable source of water aside two dysfunctional boreholes is the dam found few meters from the community constructed by the locals two decades ago. Residents spend days and nights in search of water. Most children have also been forced to sometimes abandon classes and assist parents…

Embu residents assured of health services despite water shortage.
The Embu County Executive in Charge of Health, Pauline Njagi, has assured residents of Kithimu in Embu West Sub-county of continued steady health services, adding that the facility in the area will not be closed down due to lack of water.
Claims by the area MCA, Michael Njeru, who had expressed concerns that the Public Health had ordered the closure of all health facilities in the area because of water scarcity problems, claims that Ms Pauline has disputed strongly.
Also Read: Inflation hits 10.28pc in March “Kithimu Health Center is connected to Kithimu-Kithegi water supply, however, this water is not available at all times and in mitigation, we have storage water tanks that we store water in them.
At no time have services stopped because of lack of water,” explained the CEC Health.
Ms Njagi disclosed that plans are underway to have the health facility connected to the more reliable Embu Water and Sanitation Company (EWASCO).
Edited by Majanga Michael

Water scarcity threatens Iraqi Kurdistan.
ARA News Kurdish activists on Saturday warned of the increasing water scarcity in the Kurdistan region.
“We have more than 3,000 rivers, almost 1,000 are completely dried out in the Kurdistan region,” Kurdish activist Bayar Shahab said during the TEDxNishtiman conference in Erbil, capital of Iraqi Kurdistan.
“While in Kurdistan they use 800 liters water per person, in Sweden they use 120 liters of water,” he said.
Therefore, the activist called on the Kurdish government and the public to take actions to decrease water usage.
“The government should take action and raise public awareness,” he said.
“Teach the kids at school and formulate a strong water national security policy and implement smart water solutions.” “The government also needs to formulate a water policy and minimize the waste of water,” Shahab said, adding: “Kurds should take action on a personal level.
We cannot change the whole world, but we can make our own impact.” According to a report released by the World Resources Institute (WRI), water supplies across the Middle East will deteriorate over 25 years, threatening economic growth and national security and forcing more people to move to already overcrowded cities.
“Drought and water shortages in Syria likely contributed to the unrest that stoked the country’s 2011 civil war.
Dwindling water resources and chronic mismanagement forced 1.5 million people, primarily farmers and herders, to lose their livelihoods and leave their land, move to urban areas, and magnify Syria’s general destabilisation,” says the report.