Major Corporations Making the World Water Crisis Worse

Only around a quarter of the most influential food and agricultural companies in the world have promised to reduce their water usage and decrease water pollution, Oxfam reported Thursday.

Oxfam's analysis comes a day before the United Nations' World Water Day on March 22. It points out that, according to U.N. figures, 2 billion people cannot reliably access safe drinking water, yet a full 70% of fresh water withdrawals go to agriculture.

"When big corporations pollute or consume huge amounts of water, communities pay the price in empty wells, more costly water bills, and contaminated and undrinkable water sources," Oxfam France executive director Cécile Duflot said in a statement. "Less water means more hunger, more disease, and more people forced to leave their homes."

"We clearly can't rely on corporations' goodwill to change their practices—governments must force them to clean up their act, and protect shared public goods over thirst for profit."

Oxfam's analysis was based on data on the 350 most influential food and agricultural companies from the World Benchmarking Alliance. These include agricultural companies like Bayer, Cargill, and Tyson; food and beverage makers like Nestlé, Coca-Cola, and PepsiCo; major retailers like Walmart, Kroger, and Carrefour; and restaurants like McDonald's and Starbucks.

Oxfam found that only 28% of these companies had plans to reduce water use, and only 23% had plans to curb water pollution. At the same time, less than half of the companies—108 out of 350—even reported how much water they took from water-stressed locations.

Water scarcity is a major impediment to global well-being, with the climate crisis already exacerbating the problem. Currently, around half of all people on Earth experience severe water scarcity for at least one month each year, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In northern Kenya, southern Ethiopia, and parts of Somalia, Oxfam found that as many as 90% of water boreholes had evaporated in 2023. Further, 1 in 5 people in the region did not have access to sufficient safe drinking water. World Weather Attribution concluded that the drought in the Horn of Africa was made more severe because of the climate crisis, and that similar droughts were 100 times more likely because of global heating.

Despite climate-driven extreme weather events that put increased strain on water resources, major companies have not changed their business models. For example, the bottling and re-selling of water is a common corporate practice that, according to the U.N., impedes the sustainable development goal (SDG6) of ensuring safe drinking water for all.

In May 2023, Oxfam pointed out, a drought in France's department of Puy-de-Dôme prompted authorities to restrict the water use of its thousands of residents for two months. However, Danone-subsidiary the Société des Eaux de Volvic was still permitted to extract unrestricted amounts of groundwater during the drought for its bottling plant. That year, Danone amassed €881 million ($956 million) in profits and rewarded shareholders to the tune of €1,238 million ($1,344 million).

"We clearly can't rely on corporations' goodwill to change their practices—governments must force them to clean up their act, and protect shared public goods over thirst for profit," Duflot said.

To ensure water justice, Oxfam said that governments should treat water as a human right; enforce consequences for companies when they violate environmental or human rights laws; and invest in water, sanitation, and hygiene services.