As part of its focus on water stewardship, Keurig Green Mountain, Inc. announced a multi-faceted effort to address the long-term, interconnected challenges of the water crisis, starting with a commitment of $11 million to support leading nonprofit organizations working domestically and internationally to promote water security.
"Freshwater resources are dwindling and communities throughout the world are threatened with scarcity," said Brian Kelley, president and CEO of Keurig Green Mountain, in a prepared statement. "Water is a critical natural resource that is fundamentally important to our company, our consumers, our stakeholders and our supply chain. As a business and as global citizens, we have a responsibility to promote good water stewardship in the world."
In late 2014 Keurig Green Mountain will convene water experts at the first annual Keurig Green Mountain Water Summit in Vermont late in 2014 to stimulate conversations, collaboration and problem solving to address the global water crisis. In addition, the company will continue to focus on processes and products that reduce the company's water footprint and help consumers save water.
As part of the $11 million commitment, Keurig Green Mountain funded four water-related non-profit organizations. Those partners and partnership goals include:
- charity: water, a global non-profit organization with a mission to bring clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations. Working with charity: water, Keurig Green Mountain aims to bring clean drinking water to one million people by 2020.
- Global Water Initiative (GWI), created by the Howard G. Buffett Foundation in partnership with CARE, Catholic Relief Services (CRS), the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to focus resources and expertise on the efficient and equitable use of water resources for agricultural production to improve food security, resiliency, and sustainability for communities. The Keurig Green Mountain and GWI partnership is driving on-the-ground work to improve management of water resources in coffee-growing areas of Central America.
- Raise-the-River, a coalition of leading conservation non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working within a landmark U.S.-Mexico policy framework to restore the once lush and vibrant Colorado River Delta by reconnecting the Colorado River to the Gulf of California. Together, Keurig Green Mountain and Raise-the-River are helping lead the charge to restore the health of the Colorado River starting with the Delta.
- American Rivers, a non-profit that protects wild rivers, restores damaged rivers and conserves clean water for people and nature. Through this partnership, Keurig Green Mountain and American Rivers are bringing communities together to clean up and restore their local rivers. Keurig Green Mountain employees have participated in river clean-up activities for ten years, including several years in partnership with American Rivers.
Keurig Green Mountain's commitment to addressing the water crisis goes hand-in-hand with the company's commitment to understanding and reducing its water footprint and creating products that help consumers save water. The innovative Keurig® brewing system uses water from the tap and only uses amounts of water that will be consumed. That means the company doesn't ship water and consumers don't throw out water in the form of wasted coffee.
