In an effort to reduce their water footprint, food & drink companies in the UK came together to join the water roadmap, which aims to establish 20 water stewardship projects by 2030 with at-risk catchments identified as being key sourcing areas for UK food & drink. The aim of this project was to better understand, and reduce! the negative impacts the withdrawal and usage of freshwater for producing products for the UK food & drink companies can have on the ecosystems and people, where the water is sourced.
Fresh Thoughts Consulting checked all existing water stewardship projects linked to the Water Roadmap in summer 2022. We hereby built on the previous work of the “The Rivers Trust” in the UK and WWF overseas, which have helped set up an annual independent project review process. The review consisted of reviewing all reports and assessing the progress for the key performance indicators (KPIs) as well as checking potential financing gaps and conducting interviews with the project leads. We were also in the role of reporting back and summarizing the findings for the water oversight panel.
The project was commissioned by the UK-based climate action NGO WRAP.