To achieve scale, quality, and mainstream adoption, the Mandate must empower endorsing companies, operations managers, and suppliers—of all sizes and at all stages of development—to understand, prioritize, develop and implement the elements of world class corporate water stewardship strategies.

In recognition of the growing numbers and diversity of endorsing companies, the Mandate seeks to provide more guidance related to direct operations and supply chains than it has done in the past. Direct Operations, Supply Chain and Watershed Management projects will:

• Support companies that have not yet fully addressed WASH, wastewater quality or water efficiency in their direct operations. These are the first steps that position companies for more advanced water stewardship external-engagement-oriented initiatives.
• Help companies to develop or improve the effectiveness of supply chain water stewardship strategies, via corporate-led supply chain initiatives, industry collaboration, and socializing corporate water stewardship principles with voluntary sustainability standards developers.
• Provide more effective guidance on using water risk evaluation tools, interpreting the results, understanding the local conditions that create risk, choosing appropriate solutions, and integrating this information into water stewardship strategy across direct operations and supply chains.
• Support companies to meet their commitments to respect and help realize the achievement of the Human Rights to Water and Sanitation, thereby helping to achieve SDG6 Targets 1 & 2 for access to water and sanitation.

The Mandate Secretariat will convene a Supply Chain Working Group, evaluate the specific needs of endorsing companies, and facilitate the development of guidance with input from leading endorsing company representatives with supply chain expertise.

In addition to managing water use in the production of goods and services, companies wishing to operate sustainably must also participate in the stewardship of common resources, especially in stressed watersheds where they have direct operations or suppliers. Until sustainable water management is achieved in the watersheds where they do business, companies face water-related risks.

To achieve transformative impact and sustainable management of shared water resources, the Mandate will continue to investigate and inform the development of credible, fair, and effective water stewardship initiatives that bring together the private sector, governments, and communities in support of sustainable water management for shared benefits.

Existing Mandate guidance on collective action includes:

• Guide to Responsible Business Engagement with Water Policy,
• Guide to Water-Related Collective Action, and
• Guide for Managing Integrity in Water Stewardship Initiatives.

Over the next three years, the Mandate will continue to advise endorsing companies on emerging issues and support collective action opportunities at the watershed, national, and international levels, as well as facilitate collaborations with UN agencies and other key stakeholders. The Mandate will build on its current efforts to utilize the Water Action Hub as a coordination platform for collective action, and will seek to find linkages with its efforts to support sector and place-based collective action vis-à-vis the Supply Chain Working Group. This workstream will also develop projects that raise awareness and offer guidance and supporting tools on best practices for effective and inclusive partnerships, integrity and sufficiency in water stewardship initiatives.

To achieve quality and preserve credibility, the Mandate must maintain effective accountability for itself and endorsing companies. Mandate endorsers commit to take action and to report progress on the Mandate’s six core elements of water stewardship. In fact, transparency is itself one of the six key elements.

Since its launch in 2007, the CEO Water Mandate’s Transparency Policy has required each Mandate endorsing company to provide a Communication on Progress (COP-Water) on an annual basis. In 2008, the Mandate developed a more detailed Transparency Framework, followed by an investigation into current and emerging practice in corporate water reporting in 2009.

Transparency continues to be a critical strategic pillar for the Mandate, contributing to mainstream adoption through sharing of best practices and success stories, keeping stakeholders informed of quantifiable corporate water stewardship impact, and helping the CEO Water Mandate to promote itself and its mission to mobilize business leaders to address the global water crisis.

2030 Sustainable Development Goal 6 for Sustainable Management of Water and Sanitation for all includes a set of targets that provide an opportunity to rally Mandate-endorsing companies and strategic partners from the public and nonprofit sectors around a set of common endpoints with the support and endorsement of the international development community. In keeping with its role as a UNGC Impact Platform, the Mandate will evaluate the opportunity to align its work with SDG6 targets for water and sanitation, consider the potential to report contributions of endorser-driven collective action initiatives to the achievement of the targets, and build consensus within the water stewardship community around impact metrics/indicators and best practices for monitoring and evaluation against achievement of SDG6.