Ecolab, CDP introduce industry benchmarks for operational water efficiency
Key Highlights
- The Water Use Efficiency Index is a collaborative effort between Ecolab and CDP, announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
- It uses data from over 10,000 corporate disclosures and operational insights from 40 industries across 170 countries to set performance benchmarks.
- Initial focus is on the beverage and brewing sectors, which are highly water-dependent, to improve efficiency at both site and enterprise levels.
- Benchmarks specify best-in-class water use, such as 1.2-1.4 liters per liter of soft drink for beverage manufacturing and 1.4-2.0 hectoliters per hectoliter for brewing.
Ecolab Inc. and CDP recently announced a partnership to launch the Water Use Efficiency Index, a new benchmarking tool designed to help companies measure, compare and improve operational water performance. The initiative was announced at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos and is intended to provide sector-specific guidance on what constitutes best-in-class water use efficiency.
According to Ecolab and CDP, the Index establishes defined performance ranges that allow companies to assess how efficiently they use water at both the site and enterprise level. The benchmarks are designed to give operational leaders clearer visibility into current performance and to support data-driven decisions on efficiency improvements and long-term water management strategies.
The Index will begin with a pilot focused on the Beverage and Brew segment within the Food, Beverage and Agriculture industry, one of the most water-intensive sectors globally. Officials from the two companies say this initial focus reflects the operational and resource pressures facing manufacturers that rely heavily on water for production, cleaning and thermal processes.
The Water Use Efficiency Index draws on CDP’s database of more than 10,000 annual corporate water disclosures, combined with Ecolab’s operational data from customer locations across 40 industries and 170 countries, as well as data from trade organizations.
Using this dataset, the Index defines benchmarks for best-in-class performance and highlights leading levels of enterprise-wide water efficiency among reporting peers.
For beverage manufacturing, the benchmarks identify best-in-class water use at the location level for carbonated soft drinks as 1.2 to 1.4 liters of water per liter of product, with enterprise-level performance ranging from 1.5 to 1.8 liters per liter. In brewing operations, best-in-class performance is defined as 1.4 to 2.0 hectoliters of water per hectoliter of product at the location level and 2.0 to 3.0 hectoliters per hectoliter at the enterprise level.