KDP’s Commitment to Water Stewardship
Water is a precious natural resource and the primary ingredient in our beverages. This means we need to be good stewards of water use in our operations, our communities, and throughout our supply chain. In 2019, we established a new stewardship direction for KDP, which started with new corporate water policy and goals. We also recently updated the risk assessment used to identify and prioritize the locations for our water stewardship efforts. Our robust approach covers our own operations and key inputs from our supply chain. We are currently reviewing the results to further incorporate them into our strategy and plans.
An exciting and necessary development in our water stewardship efforts is an expansion of our supply chain sustainability efforts beyond coffee to crops such as apples and corn. Keurig Dr Pepper has set a goal to support regenerative agriculture and conservation on 250,000 acres of land by 2030, which represents 50 percent of the land used to grow the Company’s top climate-sensitive crops. Protecting soil health through regenerative agriculture practices increases the capacity of soils to resist erosion and hold water, enhances the resilience of crops and supports the livelihoods of farmers over the long-term.
Since 2019, we have added new partnerships in our stewardship efforts, such as the California Water Action Collaborative and evolved current ones, such as Blue Harvest. Our work with Blue Harvest bolstered our coffee supply chain efforts to protect and restore water sources on and around coffee farms and strengthen local water resource management in Central America.
With some of these key partners, we developed water stewardship plans that assess management and operation for highwater risk sites in the context of the surrounding watershed, local water issues, and local perspectives on those issues. In 2020, we embarked on three new water stewardship initiatives framed by this contextual understanding. These projects focus on innovation and collective action in pursuit of replenishing 100% of water used in high water risk communities:
- Texas: KDP supported a novel model for environmental water transactions established by our partner, The Nature Conservancy (TNC). In the Trinity River watershed, TNC executed a water lease agreement for 444 million liters to help restore environmental flows during critical drought periods. These flows not only benefit fish and wildlife habitat, but ultimately all users downstream. Our ongoing support will scale and build capacity for similar transactions elsewhere in the state.
- Jalisco, Mexico: With peers of the Beverage Industry Environmental Roundtable, KDP is part of a first-of-its kind industry collaboration to address shared water challenges in the Municipality of Tlajomulco de Zúñiga. The project involves restoring riparian land important to the region’s water quality and quantity through native vegetation planting, water infrastructure improvements, and local engagement to raise awareness about the importance of water to healthy communities.
- Arizona, Nevada & California: KDP joined 10 businesses and philanthropic entities to increase water supply reliability through a system conservation project with the Colorado River Indian Tribes (CRIT). The Bonneville Environmental Foundation coordinated over $1.7M in financial support for this project, which supports conservation efforts that directly shore up declining water levels in Lake Mead and enhances water security.