Meals manufacturing is reliant on water, with an estimated 70% of all extracted freshwater used for agriculture alone. The UN’s FAO estimates it takes between 2,000 and 5,000 litres of recent water to supply an individual’s every day consumption of meals. There isn’t any meals safety with out water safety.
Whereas carbon may be making the headlines, water is on the sharp finish of local weather change, Mars’ Kevin Rabinovitch advised FoodNavigator.
“Individuals speak about carbon because the shorthand for local weather change. Individuals have a tendency to consider local weather change as a temperature factor. We hear about 1.5°C, 2°C, however actually local weather is best regarded as the mixture of temperature and water. It contains what occurs with storms, what occurs with rainfall, floods, droughts,” Rabinovitch stated.
“Among the most quick impacts of local weather change come within the type of water greater than temperature. We’re seeing unprecedented shifts in precipitation patterns around the globe.”
Immediately, it’s considerably wetter in japanese North and South America, central and northern Asia, and northern Europe, than it was a century in the past. In the meantime, it’s drier within the Sahel, southern Africa, the Mediterranean and southern Asia. “We’re seeing precipitation patterns which are 50% greater or decrease than they had been traditionally,” the Mars sustainability knowledgeable noticed.
The incidence of each droughts and floods are rising. In line with NASA’s World Precipitation Measurement, the water cycle is intensifying as rising temperatures improve evaporation, leading to extra frequent and intense storms that carry greater flooding threat, whereas drying over some land areas additionally raises the chance of drought. UN information reveals that 2.3bn individuals stay in water-stressed international locations. If no motion is taken, this challenge is predicted to affect over half the worldwide inhabitants by 2050.
“There are components of the Center East that had been the historic residence of agriculture… it more and more seems like there will probably be giant areas that must be deserted,” Rabinovitch warned. “Water is the sharp finish of the spear of local weather change. Needing to handle and plan for water is de facto key.”
Meals and beverage companies should radially re-think their strategy to water administration which, Rabinovitch famous, has traditionally been a ‘free or nearly-free’ enter to companies.
“Not everybody has totally appreciated how essential an enter it’s. And the realisation that it would now not be free, or won’t be obtainable in any respect in sure locations and occasions, makes it fairly a fabric monetary enterprise threat that individuals have to be fascinated by.
“Any threat that’s systemic that you just discover a approach to handle and mitigate is a chance for you as a enterprise.”
Reaching water stability in most burdened watersheds
Mars just lately dedicated to attaining water stability in excessive water burdened operations by 2025. This goal covers the 5 manufacturing websites the corporate has recognized as dealing with the best water points: Guadalajara, Contemorelos, Queretaro, Santa Catarina and Toluca. These amenities produce Mars manufacturers together with Pedigree, Whiskas, Snickers and M&Ms.
The pledge will see Mars matching water used on the website via the therapy and reuse of wastewater and be partaking in collaborative water initiatives that scale back water stress and make water extra obtainable within the watershed.
By attaining water stability, Mars will guarantee each litre of water used at a website is matched via the therapy and reuse of wastewater, and by partaking in collaborative water initiatives that scale back water stress by making extra water obtainable within the watershed.
As a part of this, Mars may even be introducing ‘superior water-stewardship applications’ to enhance water effectivity, obtain water circularity by guaranteeing handled wastewater is discharged in a means that reduces stress in watersheds, and dealing collaboratively to stability remaining residual water use via initiatives that deal with water stress within the website’s catchment.
The enterprise has plans to broaden these applications to a further six manufacturing websites in Asia and Africa within the ‘close to future’.
Mars’ long-term ambition: To eradicate ‘unsustainable’ water use
The motion Mars is taking inside its personal operations builds on its multi-billion greenback Sustainable in a Era Plan to enhance water availability and eradicate unsustainable water use, which Mars defines as ‘water use in extra, calculated on the stress degree in every watershed’. This contains as dedication to eradicate unsustainable water use in its full worth chain, beginning with a 50% discount by 2025.
This broader ambition is a far higher problem as a result of water use in Mars’ personal factories is simply the tip of the iceberg, Rabinovitch advised us.
“One of many issues that’s true for any enterprise primarily based on agriculture is the water utilized in our factories goes to be just a few share factors of the water used throughout our whole worth chain. Within the case of Mars, one p.c of our water use is in our factories, 99% is in our agricultural manufacturing,” he revealed.
“The programme we’re constructing out as we have a look at our worth chain is 100 occasions the scale of our manufacturing unit water footprint.”
When assessing the motion that corporations are taking to deal with water sustainability, it’s subsequently important to have a look at whether or not commitments lengthen throughout the worth chain, Rabinovitch elaborated. He believes that is an space the place water is taking part in catch-up.
“One of many areas water must catch up is commitments throughout full worth chains. There are a whole lot of meals companies the place their complete commitments cowl their operations – their factories, their bottling crops, their meals processing websites. They’re beginning to do issues in agriculture, however they don’t have these broad commitments in like they may their GHG targets. That’s one thing that may have to be a part of the long run. That’s how you progress from being taken with doing a few intelligent pilots to actually making an attempt to unravel issues at scale… The dedication we’ve made is to our full worth chain.”
That is being achieved by mapping Mars’ whole water use throughout its international provide chain, lowering its affect in high-stressed watersheds, and remodeling its agricultural provide chain by upskilling farmers in sustainable farming practices that drive water efficiencies, the corporate stated.
Mars has already established programmes in rice and mint that, Rabinovitch defined, are already exhibiting constructive outcomes. “These are two of the foremost drivers of unsustainable water use in our footprint [and] we’re already making important progress. That’s the true key to what actually issues within the meals sector – water use in agriculture.”
The corporate’s Sustainable Rice Platform (SRP) has established a regular for sustainable rice manufacturing that promotes local weather and water-friendly rice manufacturing strategies. As of 2020, Mars Meals sources 99% of its rice from farmers working in the direction of the SRP requirements.
Equally, via its Shubh Mint program in Northern India, Mars has educated over 24,000 farmers on Good Agricultural Practices.
“A lot of the mint we supply comes from India the place its grown by smallholder farmers. The profitability of the crop is essential to their livelihoods. Discovering methods to assist them develop into extra water environment friendly means they’ll extra reliably produce a crop and make the revenue they should feed their households and ship their youngsters to high school. Water effectivity in a burdened watershed like India additionally creates resilience. I you might be much less depending on that quantity of water you might be in much less bother within the yr the place it’s not obtainable,” Rabinovitch elaborated.
Thus far, Mars’ mint scheme has helped scale back the demand for water from contributors by 50%, while rising revenue and livelihoods of farmers within the area by 250%.
Placing phrases into motion
How does Mars transfer from top-level commitments to driving change in the best way it makes use of water to supply meals and pet merchandise?
Rabinovitch stated that the meals maker has a ‘historical past’ of utilizing its factories ‘to determine stuff out’ earlier than taking methods to the broader worth chain, the place affect will probably be bigger.
“We set targets, develop methods, work out issues like water balancing or renewable power in our direct operations, and take what we be taught from that to construct programmes to deal with those self same issues in our worth chain. Clearly having to deal with the extra complexities,” he defined. “We use our websites because the proving-grounds so once we go to scale in our worth chain we all know what we’re speaking about and we all know what we’re doing.”
In fact, he continued, inside the agricultural provide chain the challenges and alternatives to enhance water stewardship differ from a manufacturing unit setting. “After we get to agriculture issues are slightly totally different however at a excessive degree the concepts of water effectivity and water balancing are the identical. The technique for the way to obtain water balancing may very well be fairly totally different. It may very well be breeding higher crop varieties, it may very well be planting cowl crops, it may very well be constructing soil carbon so the soil can maintain onto the water and might rely extra on rainfall and fewer on irrigation.”
‘It is smart to work collectively’ in shared provide chains
Mars’ water technique comes because the US meals large joins the UN World Compact CEO Water Mandate’s Water Resilience Coalition (WRC), alongside over 30 international companies to drive progress towards the worldwide water disaster. This builds on Mars’ current work with the CEO Water Mandate, the place since 2015 the corporate has labored to advance progress in the direction of SDG6 (Clear Water & Sanitation).
The coalition goals to extend investments in modern options to the water-climate disaster and encourage collective motion to construct water resilience in excessive water burdened areas.
As a part of becoming a member of the Water Resilience Coalition, Mars will probably be partnering with different companies on the Charco Benditowater stewardship program in central Mexico, which is able to restore land alongside waterways essential to water regeneration by harnessing collaborative company motion.
Rabinovitch believes that an industry-wide strategy is required to deal with points like water safety and he sees promising progress on this space. “One of many huge evolutions within the sustainability house is all of the meals manufacturing corporations and retailers have labored out we share provide chains. All of us purchase from the identical suppliers, who purchase from the identical farmers. Not like our factories, once you get again to farms there’s a whole lot of shared provide chains due to the commoditisation of the world. Due to that, we’ve all labored out it is smart to work collectively on elements of sustainability.”
