Water conservation in beverage production: examining corporate water stewardship programs

Abstract

This paper evaluates the effectiveness of the current water conservation methods of beverage companies and provides suggestions for beverage companies on bet water stewardship strategies. In this paper, I answer two research questions: what are beverage companies’ water conservation strategies? What are the results, and how are the results measured? Four case studies on leading beverage companies are presented. The strategies are categorized by their contributions to different phases of production: the pre-production process, the production process, and the post-production process. Methods in the pre-production process concentrate on sustainable agriculture because agriculture consumes the most amounts of water resources. Strategies in the production process are operation management and plant redesign because they can effectively reduce water consumption in manufacture. The most popular approach in the post-production process is partnering with an environmental organization because it can influence the most amount of people. The four companies’ empirical experiences provide other beverage companies with lessons on sustainable water consumption and reveal practical directions for future academic researches.