UNIDO, NB seek sustainable protection for water resources

 

United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) and Nigerian Breweries (NB) are making collaborative efforts aimed at sustainably protecting water resources and developing ways to achieve water balance in Nigeria.

The effort is also intended to promote growth in some countries of the world including Nigeria and, according to Nicolas Vervelde, managing director/chief executive of NB, this effort is driven by a desire to create shared value and contribute towards the development of the society and the environment.

Vervelde, who spoke at a forum jointly hosted by NB and UNIDO in Lagos with the theme, ‘Stakeholder Workshop on Water Stewardship in Nigeria,’ noted that the desire to contribute to the environment was evident in their long-term strategy tagged Brewing Better World.

He explained that the strategy was focused on six areas, including protecting water resources, reducing carbon emission, sourcing sustainably, advocating responsible consumption, ensuring health and safety, and growing with communities.

The managing director said in the area of protecting water resources, the company had set out ambitious targets, disclosing that their aim was that, by 2020, they would have reduced water consumption to 3.5 hectolitres per any hectolitre of beer produced in all their breweries.

He said that in water stressed areas, they have a more stringent target of 3.3 hectolitres per hectolitre of beer, saying they had also committed to ensuring significant water compensation by their production units in water scarce and distressed areas.

David Tommy, UNIDO’s country representative revealed that his organization would work with NB, Nigeria government and other stakeholders to identify and overcome cumulative stress on finite water resources shared by multiple stakeholders in selected catchment areas through collaborative effort.

He said that the collaborative effort would, among other things, jointly mobilize resources to upscale the water balancing efforts so that overall water stress could effectively be reduced through collaborative actions, adding that the efforts would also implement targeted water balance projects in an inclusive, participatory and phased approach for overall water stress reduction.

“UNIDO is a specialised agency of the United Nations which promotes inclusive and sustainable industrialization in developing countries and economies in transition,” Tommy informed, adding that the organisation’s activities in Nigeria included poverty reduction, trade capacity building and environment and energy.

In her presentation, the guest speaker, Grace Oloukoi, a senior lecturer at Lead City University, Ibadan, described water as a connector, explaining that water was so important that everybody needed it.