Diageo’s head of environment, Michael Alexander, told edie that the company have some strong partnerships in place with NGO’s and also cross sector partnership with groups, which we need to continue to nurture and build upon.

“Collaboration of this kind is becoming ever more important if we are to make a real difference,” he added.

These alliances will focus their attention towards the growing issue of resource scarcity, says Alexander, and businesses will be examining ways to tackle the this growing issue.

“Climate change, population growth and energy security are all contributing to increasing pressure on the planet’s resources,” he explained.

“As part of this, water stewardship is something that is starting to be addressed across many industries, but there is still a long way to go and 2013 will see an increase in water stewardship activity from businesses eager to decrease their water footprint and to make a positive contribution to improved water stewardship,” he said.

Speaking to edie in March, Alexander said that those in the beverage industry were already working together to tackle environmental issues.

“Collaboration in the beverage industry is almost a benchmark for other industries to work on and emulate. I’m not saying the industry is perfect, but there is a good, solid, long-term collaboration within the industry to work on issues such as water and carbon,” he said.

According to the Beverage Industry Environmental Roundtable’s (BIER) Water Use Benchmarking Report 2012, by improving water use efficiency, the industry avoided the use of approximately 35 billion litres of water in 2011 – enough water to fill London’s 02 Arena more than 16 times.

Read the full interview ‘In conversation with Diageo’s Michael Alexander’

Leigh Stringer

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