How to optimise water benefits in your 1.5°c net zero supply chain strategy

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Ambitious climate action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in agriculture is imperative to reach your organisation’s net zero target in line with the SBTi framework.

Even if we can reduce global warming to 1.5 degrees, organisations will still need to adapt to growing food with water scarcity or increased risks of flooding. Your organisation’s and supply chain’s farming approaches need to adapt to a changing climate. Therefore, there is an opportunity to increase your supply chain’s water resilience by prioritising regenerative agriculture practices and landscape interventions with water benefits among the Net Zero decarbonisation and sequestration interventions.

Leading organisations are increasingly finding that parts of their agricultural water strategy can be managed in conjunction with reducing emissions to net zero. Find out how South Pole worked with Nestlé to optimise water benefits within their SBT roadmap.

Top 3 takeaways:

1. If you want to get a head start on achieving water co-benefits in your net zero roadmap, regenerative agriculture and nature-based solutions in the landscape is the place to start. (South Pole)
   It is key to include water, carbon and biodiversity already at planning stage of watershed programmes or change in agricultural practices

1. 1. As no two farms have the same profile of soil, hydrology or ecological condition, putting regenerative agriculture into practice takes an understanding of local conditions, in order to achieve both decarbonisation and water quality and quantity benefits. 
      
      
2. Why is this important? Companies are only as resilient as the system they are a part of (WBCSD):
   1. Not only impacts, but also economic and livelihoods benefits are shared across the value chain partners
   2. Processing and packaging food consumes more than 70% of the world’s increasingly strained water resources and companies see up to 90% of their emissions happening in the ag value chain. Moreover, water risks, land use change and climate change cumulatively add to the speed and scale of the growing water and climate crisis - driving resilience for operations and supply chains is therefore key.
      
      
3. How can you leverage the momentum for carbon (e.g. Net Zero claims) to achieve water benefits? (Nestlé)

1. 1. Not only time but also financial resources can be maximised when the company finances interventions that achieve both water resilience and decarbonisation 
   2. Practically that means for instance to update project proposal forms for key suppliers with both water and carbon metrics, and integrating water and climate into the decision making process

We are excited to see the SBT for nature and freshwater in development. The final methodology should be released in Q3-22. SBT did such a great job in emphasizing science and planetary boundaries in corporates’ climate change mitigation actions. We look forward to seeing the developments regarding a more integrated and holistic approach to setting environmental targets across water land biodiversity and ocean.

Nevertheless, already now is the right time to take pragmatic action in water, not only in a water stewardship action strategy aligned with science but also through leveraging water benefits of the SBT/net zero roadmap. Check out the webinar to see the methodology by which Nestlé prioritised their net zero interventions according to their water benefits.

It is time to take action now!

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