NPWI is a leadership ambition set at the enterprise level and is available to any company, across any sector, industry or geography. It aims to ensure that the water user’s contributions towards a healthy basin exceed their impacts, building long-term resilience in water-stressed basins. It requires long-term commitment and input towards quantifiable outcomes. NPWI is structured into three pillars that help define the scale of activities for each site. Each pillar addresses three dimensions of water stress, namely availability, quality and accessibility. NPWI aligns with other approaches and supports SDG 6.
NPWI is a concept that has taken several years to evolve. Ross Strategic and Pegasys supported the development of the original conceptual framework. Bluerisk continued with initial drafting, building on practitioner experience and published literature, working in close consultation with the CEO Water Mandate, Pacific Institute and the NPWI Task Force of member organizations from the Water Resilience Coalition. The Task Force included 3M, Danone, Heineken, Holcim, The Nature Conservancy and Kurita. The working draft guidance documents were reviewed and piloted by seven CEO Water Mandate-endorsing companies, including 3M, Danone, Diageo, GSK, Holcim, Kurita and PepsiCo. Further reviewers include Ceres, Quantis and WaterAid, ERM, SWCA and Orbia.
NPWI guidance continues to evolve with the active input and guidance from its Task Force. We encourage active engagement in making improvements in the working documents.
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The UN Global Compact CEO Mandate and its Water Resilience Coalition call on businesses to join the NPWI (Net Positive Water Impact) journey to build resiliency for their own operations and the communities and ecosystems in which they operate. Deep dive into the business case and the pressing need for ambitious action on water to support resilience against climate impacts in this webinar hosted by the UN Global Compact Academy. Hear from companies who have taken action to achieve Net Positive Water Impact and learn steps your business can take on the road to NPWI.