The CEO Water Mandate has curated a set of membership opportunities for all Mandate Endorsers in 2026-2027, designed to deepen engagement and drive collective impact — whether you’re a new Endorser getting oriented for the first time, or a long-standing member looking to expand your involvement.
These opportunities are structured around the Mandate’s three core pillars:
- Pillar 1: Drive Adoption and Implementation of CWS Thought Leadership
- Pillar 2: Engagement in the 100 Priority Basins + Beyond
- Pillar 3: Shaping and Accelerating the Global Water Stewardship Agenda
Within each pillar, companies can engage through different workstreams, based on the category of deliverables ranging from exclusive working groups and peer-to-peer engagement to access to resources, digital tools, and more:
- Thought Leadership — Guidance, resources, working groups, and training/peer-learning that shape what the CEO Water Mandate/WRC publishes and build members’ capacity to apply it.
- Collective Action / Implementation — On-the-ground, basin-level programmes where members act together.
- Digital Tools and Platforms — Access to digital platforms.
- Investment — WRC Pathway 4’s corporate engagement work: workshops, working groups, a funders’ circle, and investment-focused events.
- Sponsorship and Partnerships — Paid visibility opportunities.
Help shape our 2027 priorities by sharing your company’s interests and the opportunities you would like to participate in through the 2027 Membership Opportunities – Feedback Form.
If you have any questions, please reach out to your CEO Water Mandate representative or contact ceowatermandate@unglobalcompact.org.
To-Do List for Members in 2026-2027
We encourage all members to read through this to-do list and support the delivery of CEO Water Mandate strategy.
OUR INITIATIVES
Companies that join the CEO Water Mandate commit to action on six commitment areas and to annual reporting requirements. The CEO Water Mandate has introduced two membership levels:
The Water Resilience Coalition (WRC) is an industry-driven initiative that aims to elevate the long-term, mounting crisis of global water stress to the top of the corporate agenda, and to preserve the world’s freshwater resources through collective action in water-stressed basins and ambitious, quantifiable commitments. The initiative was originally established under the CEO Water Mandate through a collaboration between the United Nations Global Compact and the Pacific Institute. The WRC is now a subsidiary of the Pacific Institute.
The CEO Water Mandate advances corporate water stewardship through thought leadership, capacity building, leveraging the UN System, and connecting corporates with action partners, while the WRC acts as an implementing partner — building basin-level collective action platforms, leveraging innovative financing and digital tools, and mobilizing corporates around a long-term ambition with measurable outcomes at the system level.
Forward Faster is a campaign of the United Nations Global Compact identifying 5 areas of action (including water) selected to accelerate progress across all 17 Sustainable Development Goals, and are where the private sector can collectively make the biggest, fastest impact by 2030. To be validated as participants in the UN Global Compact’s Forward Faster – Water Resilience initiative, companies must join the CEO Water Mandate.
Water Resilience Coalition CSOs Advisory Board (CAB) – The CSO Advisory Board guides the direction of the Water Resilience Coalition. CEOs and C-suite members meet quarterly to review progress, map plans, and priorities. To join, you need to be a member of the WRC.
Click here for a complete Water Action Hub Guide
- Create a Water Action Hub Profile: Visit the Water Action Hub and create an account for your company. The Hub connects water actors to a variety of online resources and allows users to discover possible collaboration opportunities in their area. The Hub is home to a variety of users from around the world from all industry sectors seeking to water security. Creating an account is free of charge.
- Add Basins of interest in the 100 Basins App: Go to the 100 Basins App to enter projects and basins of interest. With the launch of the 100 Priority Basins, Mandate Endorsers must have a Water Action Hub profile. Through the Hub, you’ll be able to access basin diagnostic information, collective action projects, and investment opportunities, and will be notified of basin-level projects in your identified basins of interest. Should you have questions contact Todd Player at tplayer@pacinst.org
The launch of the 100 Priority Basins has begun the process of implementing basin-level Collective Action projects and tracking impact. The approach includes:
- Establishing the basin’s main issues and mapping key stakeholders
- Setting contextual goals
- Building a roadmap of solutions
- Implementing these solutions
- Measuring progress
In accordance with the UN Global Compact, the 2023 Communication on Progress (CoP) for the Mandate is optional, but we highly encourage your company to review the 2024 Questionnaire in preparation for the 2024 reporting cycle. In 2024, the UNGC is moving toward a more data-driven and less narrative type of CoP and the CEO Water Mandate will make a similar transition in 2025. The reporting requirements for Forward Faster align with the future vision of reporting requirements for the Mandate.
The enhanced CoP enables participating companies of the UN Global Compact to:
- Measure and demonstrate progress to stakeholders and the public on the Ten Principles and the Sustainable Development Goals in a consistent and harmonized way.
- Build credibility and brand value by showing their commitment to the Ten Principles and the Sustainable Development Goals.
- Receive insight, learn, and continuously improve performance by identifying gaps, accessing guidance, and setting sustainability goals.
- Compare performance against peers with access to one of the largest sources of free, public, and comparable corporate sustainability data.
You can use the spreadsheet here to support your data collection process with relevant team members and the CoP Data Compilation Checklist here. Use the CoP Guidebook here to get information on how to answer the questions, find calculations, and explore a glossary of key terms to help you complete the CoP questionnaire.
The WASH Self-Assessment Tool is a facility-level Excel-based tool that helps companies assess the level of WASH facilities, help identify gaps in comparison to leading international practices as well as evaluate the implementation every year. It helps companies to measure, set targets, and monitor progress based on the compliance score calculated by the tool for each criterion and thus supports decision-making regarding investment and priority action.
For more information, you can review the WASH Pledge: Guiding Principles. This publication includes a set of guiding principles that will support companies in their efforts to implement WASH at the workplace – an essential first step for businesses supporting global objectives related to drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene.
Seeking Participants
Positive Water Impact (PWI)
Positive Water Impact (PWI) helps companies move from understanding water stewardship to delivering it on the ground, through a tiered approach that meets you where you are — from free guidance through to paid, hands-on site-level support.
- Tier 1 – Access to PWI Resources: free, no-cost resources
- Tier 2 – Small Group Engagement: for Contributing Mandate Endorsers and WRC members
- Tier 3 – Individualised Site Support: paid support package
- Tier 4 – PWI Training: workshops for consultants and Country Networks
One–Pager: PWI Tiered Support- One Pager
Positive Water Impact – Resilient Value Chain (PWI-RVC)
Led by the CEO Water Mandate and Water Resilience Coalition, the Resilient Value Chain (RVC) Project extends the PWI framework beyond direct operations and into your sourcing regions — giving companies the first standardized methodology to prioritize action in high-risk sourcing basins, attribute water impact fairly across supply chains, and drive change even without direct control. Guidance will include crosswalks to major frameworks such as SBTN, TNFD, and CSRD.
- Corporate Partner – help fund and shape the methodology, with direct input into workshops, review sessions, and a case study of it applied to your own value chain
- Expert Advisory Group – lend technical expertise to refine scope and review drafts as the guidance develops
Two–Pager: PWI Resilient Value Chain – Two Pager
If interested, contact:
Dr Klaudia Schachtschneider, Programme Manager & Interim Technical Lead — kschachtschneider@pacinst.org
Dr Ashok Chapagain, Senior Technical Specialist — akchapagain@pacinst.org
The Water Resilience Coalition has identified 25+ focus basins out of the 100 Priority basins, with 10 more additional basins in 2027. The engagement is offered at non-mutually exclusive levels
Become a Basin Champion & Sponsor (requires approval)
Basin Champions ignite and scale collective action in priority basins through investment, recruitment, and advocacy for new and emerging Basin Collaboratives — putting your company at the front of the effort in the places that matter most to your operations. Basin Sponsors is a role for companies leading a collective action platform (Basin Collaborative) in a priority basin
Collaborative-Champion – Two pager
Join a Basin Collaborative
Basin Collaboratives bring corporates, government, and civil society together to address urgent water challenges in a shared basin — through capacity building, research, benefit sharing, and investment in nature-based solutions, all tracked to demonstrate basin-level impact. Joining gives your company a ready-made platform to act on a scale, with measurable, reportable results.
Basin Collaboratives – Two Pager
Scale your Collective Action Project
A role for companies to bring an existing collective action project to WRC’s global portfolio. Projects are reviewed against WRC’s Collective Action Project criteria for potential inclusion, then opened to additional companies for co-funding and scaling. We currently have 28 basins with collective action projects open for co-funding and aim to have 50 basins with vetted collective action project opportunities by the end of 2027.
Fund a Collective Action Project
The Water Resilience Coalition is inviting companies to join and help scale an existing, WRC-reviewed collective action project by co-funding its expansion. This includes Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) projects across four countries: India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, and Mexico — delivered with partners including WaterAid, UNICEF, and WSUP, spanning three dimensions: water quality, water quantity, and access.
We are looking to grow participation in our existing 28 basins, plus those added in 2027.
To learn more about collective action, visit the project page
- Contact the Collective Action team:
- André Villaça Ramalho, WRC Lead, avramalho@pacinst.org
- Katherine Isaf, WRC Program Manager, kisaf@pacinst.org
Nature-Based Solutions can help capture and store carbon; manage floods, droughts, and extreme weather events; restore watershed and ecosystem health; increase biodiversity; improve agricultural production; and deliver a wide range of socio-economic benefits.
The NBS Benefit Explorer helps practitioners identify, forecast, and value the benefits of nature-based solutions across a watershed. Companies can join as corporate partners to fund the final stage of development — the geospatial analyses, expert interface, and benefit quantification calculators — and help bring a global tool to full functionality ahead of using it themselves.
Nature-Based Solutions – One Pager
To participate, reach out to us through Todd Player, Associate Director, Digital Technology – TPlayer@pacinst.org
Explore Benefit Accounting of Nature-Based Solutions for Watershed Resources?
The Water Resilience Assessment Framework (WRAF) is being extended from a single-site tool into the first supply chain-specific water resilience guidance — built initially for cotton, textile, and apparel, with a replicable template planned for sectors such as food and beverage and leather. Companies can apply the guidance, adapt it as a sector template, or join as an expert reviewer — shaping a framework set to become the standard, well ahead of its wider rollout.
Water Resilience Assessment Framework – One Pager
To be considered, reach out to Project Lead, Dr. Ashok Chapagain (akchapagain@pacinst.org)
Explore Water Resilience Assessment Framework (WRAF) Resources
The CWS Collection turns water stewardship work already underway into polished, third party-validated case studies — offered in tiers from a newsletter spotlight to a high production video or an interactive story, in themed bundles such as reuse and desalination or nature-based solutions. The Mandate handles storytelling, editorial direction, and production, giving your company ready-made content for communications, disclosures, and ESG reporting — a low-lift way to build credibility with peers, regulators, and investors, and to defend water investment internally.
The Corporate Water Stewardship Collection Case Studies – Two Pager
With UN-Water, the CEO Water Mandate is convening an 18-month Task Team on sustainability and impact metrics for water quantity, quality, and WASH — connecting corporate water stewardship to global SDG 6 monitoring. Organizations contribute to a landscape review of existing approaches, then help shape the pilot phase by proposing locations, sharing data, or contributing funding — giving your organization a direct hand, with full recognition, in a framework set to become the standard for harmonized water metrics.
Meetings & Events
The CEO Water Mandate seeks to mobilize a critical mass of business leaders to address global water challenges through corporate water stewardship in partnership with the United Nations, governments, civil society, and other stakeholders.
The Mandate’s virtual workshop series gives member companies a platform to share water stewardship experience, challenges, and lessons learned with peers, on topics members voted as top priorities. Speaking slots are open for the October 2026 session on nature and biodiversity and the December 2026 session on long-term water resilience, with further topics planned for 2027. Presenting positions your organization as a sector leader — the Mandate handles logistics, moderation, and guidance, so your speaker needs only 10–15 minutes of preparation.
CWM Virtual Workshop – One Pager
To participate in any upcoming workshops, reach out to Hellen Mwarasomba, Senior Engagement Specialist, hmwarasomba@pacinst.org
As an initiative of the UN Global Compact, the CEO Water Mandate offers companies a range of ways to gain visibility while supporting global water resilience — from tiered sponsorship of flagship 2027 events to in-kind partnership for companies without a dedicated sponsorship budget, to a lighter-weight newsletter spotlight for SMEs. Each package is tailored to your goals and reach, with visibility across our website, events, and newsletter — read by thousands of water leaders worldwide.
Events Sponsorship Packages – Two Pager
To view upcoming events, visit Events & Webinars
If interested or would like more details, reach out to Raquel Ortuno at rortuno@pacinst.org.?
Open to:?All CEO Water Mandate Endorsers
Time:?2 Sessions – 7 am PT and 3 pm?PT??
Venue:?Online
Description:?The quarterly All CEO Water Mandate Endorsers Meeting is a one-hour session where all endorsing companies convene, and the Mandate team presents relevant updates. It’s an opportunity to actively contribute to the progress of this initiative and engage with fellow endorsers in advancing corporate water stewardship.??
Open to:?All CEO Water Mandate Endorsers?
Venue: In Person during UNGA and a separate virtual date (TBD)
Description:?The quarterly All CEO Water Mandate Endorsers Meeting is a one-hour session where all endorsing companies convene, and the Mandate team presents relevant updates. It’s an opportunity to actively contribute to the progress of this initiative and engage with fellow endorsers in advancing corporate water stewardship.??
To view past meetings, please reach out to your CEO Water Mandate representative or contact ceowatermandate@unglobalcompact.org