Nestlé Waters is seeking re-certification from the Alliance for Water Stewardship Standard (AWS) for its bottling site at Waterswallows and wants to maintain its platinum status.

The re-certification audit will take place on site between March 5-8, 2024 and stakeholders and members of the public are invited to provide comments.

Jenni Jones, senior media relations manager for Nestlé Waters, said: ”The Waterswallows site was first accredited in 2020 with platinum status – the highest rating available, and was the first factory in the UK to achieve this top score in water stewardship.

“The Water Stewardship Standard, AWS, Standard is a global standard promoting responsible water use that benefits local communities socially and economically, while ensuring environmental sustainability of watersheds.”

Nestle Waterswallows is hoping to keep its platinum status during its re-certification in March.

placeholder image — Nestle Waterswallows is hoping to keep its platinum status during its re-certification in March.

AWS International Water Stewardship Standard is a globally applicable framework for major water users to understand their water use and impacts, and to work collaboratively and transparently for sustainable water management within a catchment context.

The Standard is intended to drive social, environmental and economic benefits at the scale of a catchment.

It achieves this by engaging water-using sites in understanding and addressing shared catchment water challenges as well as site water risks and opportunities.

It asks water-using sites to address these challenges in a way that progressively moves them to best practice in terms of five outcomes; good water governance; sustainable water balance; good water quality status; important water-related areas and safe water, sanitation and hygiene for all.

In pursuit of these outcomes, implementation of the Standard encourages collaborative approaches that involve business and industry, government and community as well as civil society organisations.

Jenni said: “Stakeholders and members of the public are invited to provide comments to be considered during the audit.”

This can be done in writing by sending emails to the lead auditor for Water Stewardship Assurance Services (WSAS), Wicki Nielsen, at [email protected].

Alternatively, anyone who would like to speak with the audit team, an interview can be arranged remotely but must happen before Friday March, 8 2024.

People can also contact the Alliance for Water Stewardship directly with questions via the webpage a4ws.org/about/comments-complaints-and-appeals or email: [email protected]