Mar 08 – CEO Water Mandate Convenes Inaugural Working Conference

(New York, 7 March 2008) – On 5-6 March, the United Nations Global Compact, in partnership with the Pacific Institute, convened the inaugural working conference of The CEO Water Mandate. The conference, held at UN Headquarters in New York, brought together senior representatives from numerous corporations, as well as policy leaders from civil society organizations, UN agencies as well as specialized water institutes.

Companies represented included Nestle (Switzerland), The Coca-Cola Company (US), Hayleys (Sri Lanka), SABMiller (South Africa) and Suez (France). Non-business participants included WWF, Plan Malawi, Nature Conservancy as well as UNICEF, UNDP, UNEP, UNESCO, and UN OHCHR. Other organizations attending included the World Economic Forum and Business for Social Responsibility.

Participants engaged in the sharing of best and emerging practices related to direct operations, supply chain management, watershed protection, transparency, public policy, community engagement, and collective action. These areas constitute the major elements of The CEO Water Mandate, launched by the UN Secretary-General in July 2007 to engage companies on the emerging crisis in fresh water availability and sanitation.

The chief executive officers of approximately 20 companies have endorsed The CEO Water Mandate and its strategic management framework and call-to-action.

In a study released at the conference, the Pacific Institute noted: “In light of the immense scale of the global water challenge and significant percentage of private sector firms that remain unaware of the breadth and depth of the problem, this CEO-driven initiative makes a needed, complementary, and unique contribution”.

A summary of the meeting will be posted on the UN Global Compact website in early April.

To access The CEO Water Mandate, please click here.

To learn more about the Pacific Institute, please click here.

Contact

Gavin Power
Senior Advisor
UN Global Compact Office
powerg@un.org

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CEO Water Mandate Secretariat
The CEO Water Mandate is a special initiative of the UN Secretary-General and the UN Global Compact, implemented in partnership with the Pacific Institute. These key partners work together as the CEO Water Mandate Secretariat. The Mandate Secretariat supports the initiative’s mission 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; 3) facilitating meaningful collective action to improve conditions in at-risk river basins.