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Good practice Imported

Nestlé Pakistan Caring for Water — Alliance for Water Stewardship Certification (Sheikhupura)

Pakistan · Sheikhupura · See the Pakistan profile

Evidence: Observational / pre–post Top 64% 40/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

In 2017 Nestlé's Sheikhupura plant became the first site worldwide AWS-certified; drip-irrigation subsidies with Punjab cut farm water use by 377,500+ m3/yr by 2024 - though critics note the firm's earlier groundwater extraction went largely unpriced.

68 acres
Drip-irrigation acreage converted (initial) (by end 2017)
147 million litres
Water saved (2017) (2017)
109 acres
Additional acreage converted (2018 Agricultural Efficiency Project) (2018)
280 million litres
Water saved (2018) (2018)
214 acres
Drip-irrigation acreage (Sindh) (by 2024)
29 acres
Drip-irrigation acreage (Punjab) (by 2024)
>377,500 m3/yr
Cumulative estimated water savings (by 2024)
4.43 billion litres
Groundwater extracted (three plants, pre-certification) (2013-2017)

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
Nestlé Pakistan / WWF-Pakistan, with Agriculture Department, Government of Punjab
Period
2017-present
Keywords
bottled water & food manufacturing, groundwater stewardship, drip irrigation, AWS certification

Context

Nestlé Pakistan's water-bottling and food operations in Punjab drew sustained criticism after reporting showed that, between 2013 and 2017, its three plants extracted about 4.43 billion litres of groundwater from wells including one above the Indus basin aquifer at Sheikhupura, while paying little to no abstraction fee.

Objectives

Certify the plants to an international water stewardship standard and reduce farm-level water use in the surrounding catchment through subsidised drip irrigation.

Activities

In 2017 the Sheikhupura factory became the first site in Pakistan - and the first Nestlé site anywhere in the world - certified to the Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS) standard, developed with WWF-Pakistan through catchment consultations, water-quality data-sharing and farmer outreach on agrochemical runoff. Nestlé's other three Pakistani factories were certified in 2018, 2019 and 2020. The company also partnered with the Agriculture Department, Government of Punjab (backed by a World Bank-funded programme) to subsidise drip irrigation for surrounding farmers, with Nestlé covering 40% of equipment costs and the government subsidising the remainder.

Results

68 acres converted by the end of 2017 (147 million litres saved); 109 acres added under the 2018 Agricultural Efficiency Project (280 million litres saved); rising to 214 acres in Sindh and 29 acres in Punjab by 2024, with cumulative estimated savings exceeding 377,500 m3 of water.

Conclusions

Independent and critical reporting - including a Stockholm International Water Institute-linked case study and Pakistani and international press - continues to scrutinise whether a groundwater bottler's own stewardship programme adequately offsets its extraction, since AWS certification verifies process, governance and catchment engagement rather than a net, audited water balance.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Medium (€50k–€500k) — Nestlé covers 40% of drip-irrigation equipment costs for participating farmers, with the Punjab Agriculture Department (backed by a World Bank-funded programme) subsidising the remainder; scope is a few hundred acres converted across multiple years, plus the cost of AWS certification audits at four factories.
Time to results
Long (> 3 years) — Certification programme underway since 2017 (Sheikhupura) with all four Pakistani factories certified by 2020; drip-irrigation acreage and water savings continued to accumulate through at least 2024.
Staffing & skills
Nestlé Pakistan corporate sustainability/water stewardship team, WWF-Pakistan (catchment consultation, technical partner), Agriculture Department, Government of Punjab (extension/subsidy delivery)

Conditions for success

  • Third-party AWS certification audit and catchment-level stakeholder engagement
  • Co-financing arrangement between the company (40%) and government subsidy (remainder) for farmer equipment
  • Ongoing water-quality data-sharing and farmer outreach on agrochemical runoff
  • A government partner programme (World Bank-funded) to administer and scale subsidies

Common failure modes

  • AWS certification verifies process, governance and catchment engagement rather than a net, audited water balance, leaving the company's own extraction volumes unreconciled against savings claimed
  • Groundwater abstraction fees were reported as largely unpriced in the years before certification, a structural risk independent of the stewardship programme itself

Where it fits

Governance type
corporate water stewardship partnership with sub-national government
Scale
catchment/multi-site (4 factories, Punjab and Sindh)
Income level
lower-middle-income

Commonly funded by

Own resources / municipal budget

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Data sources

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