SUSTAINABILITY 07 Jean-Christophe Bligny


Environmental Director, Danone Waters


Sustainable water use in the food and beverage industry


The amount of water on the surface of Planet Earth is constant, though its repartition is not evenly spread with some countries and regions suffering from water-stress, that is to say, a scarcity. A combination of increasing population, pollution of fresh water sources, natural or anthropogenic climate change and mistakes in water management are forcing society to make Water Resource Management THE big challenge for this century.


Unlike carbon emissions which are global and affect the whole planet whatever the localisation of the emissions, water impacts are local, being linked to a watershed or an individual basin. Indeed, the fresh water comes from rainfall or snowfall, directly or indirectly (e.g. glacier melt), which supplies a finite volume of water either as runoff (e.g. river, lake) or as infiltration (e.g. aquifer) in a geographically defined water basin. The other major flow in the water cycle is evapotranspiration (heating and vegetation effect) and whilst often large, cannot be directly used as water source. Careful management allows a certain amount of water usage from a homogenous watershed


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» As a major player in water use, the food and beverage industry has a leading role to help the sustainable management of water resources «


with the resource being renewed by precipitation. Fresh water availability is also linked to quality and human activities can seriously damage water resources and reduce their suitability as a water source. As a major player in water use, the food and


beverage industry has a leading role to help the sustainable management of water resources. Water is used at each step of the life cycle of the product: water is an ingredient,


water is used in agriculture to produce ingredients, water is used in the manufacturing process for cleaning, for cooling and finally water can be affected through wastewater release. The food / beverage industry must play a strong role in the sustainable use of water.


What are the key issues and how can the food and beverage industry address them? Firstly, the stakes are, at factory level, related to the direct consumption of water. As mentioned above, water is used as an ingredient, and / or for cooling, and / or cleaning, etc and the responsibility of the manufacturer is to use it as efficiently as possible. Thus, the first step is monitoring in order to identify where the losses are and what the level of efficiency is. The monitoring should be based on an exhaustive study by installing flow meters or a measurement network in order to be able


New Food Volume 14, Issue 3, 2011


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