World Water Week: Contributing to a Water Positive Future

Water scarcity affects every continent, and about one-quarter of the world’s population experiences extremely high water stress annually. That’s why each year during World Water Week, the global water community comes together in Stockholm, Sweden, to learn, knowledge-share and collaborate to help accelerate action.

Our strategy to help build a water positive future.

Water is essential for making and using P&G products, used by billions of people around the world — from washing dishes and doing the laundry, to washing your hair and shaving. Our comprehensive strategy, introduced in 2022, is focused on reducing water in our operations, restoring water in water-stressed areas and responding to water challenges through innovation and partnership. We want to help build a future where water can sustain nature and people for generations to come.

We are making progress toward reducing water use in our facilities.

Our facilities have a sustained focus on driving water efficiency, making strong progress to date.

We're on track to meet our 2030 goals of increasing water efficiency at P&G facilities by 35% per unit of production (vs. 2010 baseline), and to recycle and reuse 5 billion liters of water in P&G facilities annually. As of fiscal year 2024, in our facilities we've reached a 26% increase in water efficiency per unit of production and are recycling 3.49 billion liters of water a year.

All P&G sites located in high water-stressed areas are required to understand their local watersheds and create water stewardship action plans that seek to address the challenges impacting both our operations and the local communities.

We are restoring water in 18 water-stressed areas around the world where we operate.

We are working with a network of on-the-ground partners to support long-term projects that improve, better manage or protect freshwater sources. Our goals are to:

• Restore more water than is consumed at P&G manufacturing sites in 18 water-stressed areas around the world. This goal focuses on water that evaporates during the manufacturing process or is incorporated into our finished products, and
• Restore more water than is consumed during the use of our products in the water-stressed metropolitan areas of Mexico City and Los Angeles. This goal focuses on water that leaks or evaporates in households during the use of P&G products.

We continue to advance long-term projects that are helping to restore water resources in critical areas, including in the U.S., Mexico, China and India. Our current projects are expected to deliver 22% of our goal. The remaining 78% will come from incremental projects to be identified.

We’re providing clean drinking water to children and families in need.

The P&G Children’s Safe Drinking Water Program works with nonprofit partners to bring clean water to communities in need around the world. Together with global partners, we’ve delivered more than 24 billion liters of clean water to people in over 100 countries since the program’s inception. The program’s goal is to deliver 25 billion liters of clean drinking water by 2025, but the work of CSDW goes beyond meeting this basic need; it's about addressing interconnected issues like gender equality, education and their impacts on global communities. Learn more at www.csdw.org.

We’re responding to water challenges through innovation and partnership.

Water scarcity is a complex issue that varies by region, and addressing it requires understanding the local context. We recognize that no single organization can solve these challenges alone. Our approach involves working closely with on-the-ground partners with a deep knowledge of the local challenges, communities and landscapes to support solutions that will result in meaningful benefits to each water-stressed area.

Across the world, and even within countries, there is a diverse mix of landscapes, cultures, economies and climates that make water issues complex and require solutions unique to each river basin. That is why we embarked on a data-based water risk assessment with expert partners at World Resources Institute (WRI), World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Environmental Resources Management (ERM) to identify the areas of the world we should focus on for maximum positive impact. And it’s why we are partnering with the Bonneville Environmental Foundation (BEF) to turn our water goals into tangible impact in the right places.

We’re proud to support projects that improve, manage or protect freshwater resources. Read about our progress around the world at the links below.

• INSTAGRAM: When it comes to water restoration work, you don’t have to imagine the impact — often, you can see it. Bidwell-Sacramento River State Park project, California.
• BLOG: Flowing with Purpose: Supporting New Water Restoration Initiatives in Mexico.
• BLOG: Diving Into Action: Supporting New Water Restoration Projects in California.

Another important partnership is the 50 Liter Home Coalition, where P&G is a founding member, and whose Los Angeles, California pilot is showing how water efficiency can be enjoyable for people at home. The results and learnings are not only encouraging but also a testament to the immense power of partnership.

The pilot involves 31 houses where we monitor daily water and hot water usage per person. Test Group homes are retrofitted with appliances and fixtures from our partners including Kohler, Electrolux and Ikea and consumer products from P&G, that were designed to help save water and energy. The Control Group homes did not receive any products, appliances or fixtures. After one year, families participating in the Test Group achieved a reduction of more than 20% in indoor water use vs. Control Group, and vs. prior consumption used 23% less hot water overall and 44% less hot water from kitchen faucets.

Importantly, in addition to lower water and energy bills, a majority of participants in the pilot reported a positive impact of the combination of provided products, appliances and fixtures on their quality of life at home.

Importantly, this project is showing us how our experience in innovation and consumer understanding can help unlock new solutions to water challenges and enable people to reduce their environmental impact at home, while continuing to enjoy delightful in-use experiences. The Coalition is launching a similar project in London in 2025, building on the exciting insights from the Los Angeles pilot.

LEARN MORE: Responding to Water Challenges Through Innovation and Partnerships

We’re innovating to deliver superior performance while helping people to save water or energy at home, through our brands, like Cascade, Dawn, Tide and Swiffer.

Dawn Powerwash Dish Spray: Spray-activated suds eliminate the need for water when hand washing dishes until the final rinse — cutting the amount of water used compared to traditional dish soaps.

Tide: Tide PODS powerfully remove stains even in cold water. When people in North America switch from hot to cold water washing, they use an average of 90% less energy in the wash cycle and save money on their yearly energy bills.

Swiffer PowerMop: Using a Swiffer PowerMop instead of a mop and bucket can save up to 70 gallons of water a year.

During World Water Week and beyond, we look forward to continuing our work with our partners, communities and stakeholders to help address water challenges. For ongoing updates about our goals and progress, you can visit our ESG Investor Portal and explore our latest Citizenship Report.