USA – Nestlé Waters North America (NWNA) has announced that its Ontario, California water bottling site is the first food and beverage factory in the world to earn Platinum certification under the rigorous Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS) Standard.

The AWS Standard is the first comprehensive global standard for measuring responsible water stewardship across social, cultural, environmental and economic criteria.

Nestlé Waters is also the first company of any type to achieve this advanced certification in North America.

“Nestlé Waters North America’s Ontario AWS Platinum certification is reflective of the site’s commitment to meeting the highest standards of water stewardship,” said Matt Howard, Director for AWS North America.

“This re-certification includes the factory’s continued focus on water stewardship onsite and at spring sources.

“Additionally, this advanced-level of certification reflects the positive contributions NWNA has made to the people, economy and nature in the catchment. We are excited to finally have an AWS Platinum-certified site here in North America,” he stated.

Ontario’s AWS Platinum certification recognizes the site’s positive contribution to the local catchment, including best practice examples of the site’s community engagement, implementation of water education efforts, participating in water, sanitation and health (WASH) education outreach, and providing water donations to local food banks and emergency relief efforts.

“We are extremely proud that our Ontario facility is the first food and beverage factory in the world to achieve AWS Platinum certification, globally recognized as the most rigorous water stewardship standard for businesses to meet,” said David Tulauskas, Chief Sustainability Officer at NWNA.

“It attests to the years of our community-first approach and the effort we have put into many water stewardship initiatives in California – on our own and as part of collective actions. We are working to achieve platinum-level certification at more of our sites and encourage others in our industry and beyond to do the same.”

Since 2016, the site has been engaging in collective action with the Cucamonga Valley Water District (CVWD) to treat contaminated groundwater, enabling the district to generate up to 250 million gallons of potable water annually for the community.

In 2018, Nestlé Waters pledged to certify all of its water bottling sites by 2025. Thus far, the company has certified thirty sites around the world, ten of which are located in the United States.

To date, all of NWNA’s California factories, including Ontario, Sacramento, Livermore, Cabazon, and Los Angeles have been certified under the AWS Standard in the U.S., and these factories are now recertifying under v2.0 of the Standard.

“It’s great to see NWNA demonstrating what good water stewardship looks like in practice with their industry-leading AWS Platinum certification,” said Jason Morrison, Head of the UN Global Compact CEO Water Mandate.

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