The Beverage Industry Environmental Roundtable (BIER) Releases Water Circularity Metrics Tool and Guidance

Feb 11, 2021 12:10 PM ET

The Beverage Industry Environmental Roundtable (BIER) Releases Water Circularit…

Rising from the increasing need for business operations to address challenges related to water quantity, quality, and value from a context-based perspective, The Beverage Industry Environmental Roundtable (BIER) and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) co-developed a Water Circularity Metrics Tool and Guidance.

The tool and guidance aim to provide a practical methodology for businesses to adopt a common metric for water circularity at a facility and enterprise level. In adopting this metric, the intention is to highlight areas where water circularity can be improved.  The methodology is focused on supporting more informed decisions on how to make water sourcing, use, and discharge more circular and less demanding on the local watershed.  The Water Circularity Metrics Tool is a scenario-based tool designed to address a current situation versus a  past or future situation providing a step-by-step process to evaluate a specific facility’s water needs; water source options; and determine post-use and discharge options to transition from linear to more circular.

Nick Martin, BIER Executive Director, said, “Our members have been leaders in advancing corporate water stewardship and security and this piece of work represents a missing piece and the culmination of our work on context-based decision making, performance in watershed context, and pursuing localized water security.  Collaborating with WBCSD brought multi-industry perspectives and the ability to leverage their related circular indicators platform as a solid foundation for this effort.” 

The development and piloting of this metric have been a collaborative effort between the Beverage Industry Environmental Roundtable (BIER) and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). Together, they have engaged a group of companies to conceptualize and test the metric.  The collaboration builds upon the success of previous initiatives including WBCSD’s Circular Transition Indicators (CTI) and BIER’s Context-Based Decision Guide for Water Reuse and Recycling.

The Water Circularity Metrics Tool and Tool Application and Guidance Note are available for download at http://bit.ly/BIERWCM

For more information, please contact:

Nick Martin
+1 (303) 615-3115
nick.martin@anteagroup.us
Executive Director | Beverage Industry Environmental Roundtable (BIER)

About BIER
BIER is a technical coalition of leading global beverage companies working together to advance environmental sustainability within the beverage sector. Formed in 2006, BIER aims to accelerate sector change and create meaningful impact on environmental sustainability matters. Through development and sharing of industry-specific analytical methods, best practice sharing, and direct stakeholder engagement, BIER accelerates the process of analysis to sustainable solution development. BIER members include American Beverage, Anheuser-Busch InBev, Bacardi, Beam Suntory, Brown-Forman, Carlsberg Group, The Coca-Cola Company, Constellation Brands, Diageo, Heineken, Keurig Dr Pepper, Molson Coors Beverage Company, Ocean Spray, PepsiCo, and Pernod Ricard