Mint Sustainability Summit: Bisleri CEO pushes for water credits to tackle India’s water scarcity

Bisleri International’s chief executive Angelo George on Tuesday emphasized the urgent need for water credits as a solution to India’s growing water scarcity. Speaking at the Mint Sustainability Summit 2024, he proposed a cap-and-trade mechanism to incentivize water conservation and ensure regulatory compliance, aiming to curb the over-exploitation of this critical resource.

“The markets, obviously, are not established for water credits but the carbon credits market that is already established and working well gives you a framework to adopt,” George said. “A cap-and-trade mechanism possibly might be a useful thing in this sector and define the monetary value of a water credit. If it kind of motivates people to save water, because then they can possibly trade that savings like carbon credits.”

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Bisleri is actively engaging with the government to facilitate discussions and develop a framework for water credits specifically tailored for the beverage industry. This initiative is designed to hold beverage manufacturers more accountable for their water usage.

George highlighted that while India has one of the world’s largest populations, it possesses only 4% of global groundwater resources. The per capita availability of groundwater has sharply declined over the past 70 years, reducing by almost a quarter. 

Population growth, rapid urbanisation and poor conservation efforts have put severe stress on India’s water tables.

But George believes that despite a 25% depletion of the groundwater in the last 70 years, the trend can be reversed to achieve a surplus in the next 70 years.

He pointed out that agriculture accounts for 85% of groundwater extraction, urging a shift towards water-prudent crops and more efficient cultivation methods. 

Organizations need to be accountable beyond their immediate operations, as water consumption within the production facility accounts for only about 9% of the total water footprint, George emphasized. 

“If I am using a particular packaging material for selling Bisleri, the water that goes into that packaging material and the production of that and the transportation to my plants and the final transportation to the consumer needs to be factored as a water footprint to my business,”

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George also noted the lack of a uniform national water policy, with water rights and regulations varying widely across states. He stressed the importance of a monetizing mechanism to measure and reward water savings effectively.

“Saving water in a monsoon-rich Kerala vs saving water in a Rajasthan needs to be rewarded differently and that’s a challenge we tried to understand. So, both carbon credits and water credits ideally should reward and provide economic incentives for people to conserve things that are critical for the environment,” he explained.

Countries like China, Kenya, and Morocco have already made strides in developing water credits, George added.

Bisleri has partnered TERI School of Advanced Studies to conduct a study that will set benchmarks for the beverage industry’s commitment to water conservation. This initiative is particularly significant as several major beverage companies have faced criticism for extracting water from water-stressed regions, prompting them to report initiatives to replenish the water used in their manufacturing processes.

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“We replenish more water than whatever we extract from the ground and our entire business model is configured around that,” he concluded.