Evolving Toward Positive Water Impact (PWI): More Than a Name Update

By Gregg Brill, Technical Lead, CEO Water Mandate 

The CEO Water Mandate and its Water Resilience Coalition (WRC) are evolving the way we talk about and act on corporate water stewardship. What was once known as Net Positive Water Impact (NPWI) will now be called Positive Water Impact (PWI). This shift reflects both strategic growth and lessons learned from partners and implementers worldwide. 

While the core methodology and scientific rigor remain unchanged, this evolution represents something more than a name update. It signals a move from a compliance-driven mindset toward one that empowers innovation, collaboration, and scale in addressing global water challenges. 

Why This Shift Matters 

PWI represents a flexible framework that supports companies at every stage of their water stewardship journey. It allows for diverse pathways to impact, helping companies reduce water risks, strengthen basin health, and advance collective action. 

By dropping the word “net,” PWI removes unnecessary complexity and distances the approach from carbon accounting analogies that don’t always fit water’s unique context. Instead, PWI emphasizes context-specific action, inviting participation, creativity, and measurable progress toward shared water resilience. The reframing to PWI opens the scope of the framework so that an aspirational end-goal is not a barrier for companies to begin their stewardship journey.   

What is Positive Water Impact 

PWI is a vision for companies to ensure their water contributions exceed their impacts in water-stressed regions. It addresses multiple dimensions of water stress, including water availability, quality, and accessibility through site-specific impacts, company footprint, and basin-level collective action. PWI is implemented through building awareness, assessment, action, and measuring progress. It focuses on reducing water withdrawal, improving water quality, and enhancing access to WASH services. Progress can be tracked and validated, which helps companies meet their water strategies and targets. Importantly, PWI aligns with other water stewardship approaches and supports the United Nations’s Sustainable Development Goal 6 on water. 

What Positive Water Impact Means for Business 

Working on PWI enables companies to: 

  • Understand and mitigate water risk within operations. 
  • Improve conditions in the basins where they operate. 
  • Improve access to water sanitation and hygiene for their workers and in the communities where they operate. 

Learn more about the framework and how to engage in Positive Water Impact here. 

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CEO Water Mandate
The Mandate is a commitment platform for business leaders and learners to advance water stewardship. Endorsing companies commit to action across six key elements and report annually on progress. The Mandate Secretariat - a partnership between the UN Global Compact and Pacific Institute - supports the initiative’s mission and endorsing companies in many ways, including: (1) developing research, guidance, and tools that advance corporate water stewardship, (2) convening multi-stakeholder events to identify, explore, and solve key water challenges, and (3) facilitating meaningful collective action to improve conditions in at-risk river basins around the world.