When Nestlé Waters became the new famous swiss brand in 2007, it decided to take one step further the water preservation initiatives already put in place by Sources Minérales Henniez and to extend the water preservation area from the actual 100 ha up to 400 ha via partnerships.
The so called “Eco-Resources” project stimulates and coordinates a number of eco-strategic initiatives aiming to harmonize the economic development on the one hand, and the sustainable preservation of the environmental resources at the other side. The final objective being to reduce on long term a certain amount of identified potential threats to the water resources.
The roadmap follows a 5-step implementation plan:
- A field assessment of land use systems is conducted within the defined 400 ha to protect to identify, amongst others, the major threats in terms of ground water pollution.
- Screening of different stakeholders (e.g.: farmers) to elaborate a communication strategy of long term protection goals.
- Engagement with stakeholders to test their willingness/ability to change for more sustainable land use practices (i.e.: no pesticides, balanced use of fertilizers, manure management etc.)
- Experimentation and implementation of the new proposed practices and validation by external experts from Agronomy and Environmental Sciences.
- Follow up of new implemented practices using suitable key performance indicators to measure improvements and sustainability.
