This August, Project Waterfall’s Director, Roxy, joined water, sustainability and business leaders from around the world at World Water Week in Stockholm. The annual event brings together people working across the water sector to share knowledge, explore emerging challenges and consider how we can work together to build a more water-secure future.
For Project Waterfall, it was an opportunity to connect with delivery partners, coffee industry partners and fellow water professionals, while exploring the increasingly important relationship between water stewardship, agriculture and resilient coffee supply chains.
Below, Roxy shares some reflections from her first World Water Week, including the conversations and connections that left her feeling inspired about the role the coffee sector can play in addressing the world's water challenges.
Some reflections from having attended my first World Water Week in Stockholm.
Firstly it was a fantastic opportunity to meet with some of Project Waterfall’s delivery partners including Millennium Water Alliance (MWA), WaterAid, Splash International and Water.org and to hear updates about their work. In particular meeting Lauren Rymer and Martin Carter from the Splash International team was so inspiring as we are actively fundraising to support new schools in Zambia!
The content of the week was incredible, with sessions led by WASH experts and leaders in business speaking about the impacts of investing in smart water stewardship strategies to combat drought in Columbia to learning about Danone's pilot research in mapping rainfall patterns related to Green water!
There was a big focus on how business has a critical role to play in driving innovation and private sector investment in water stewardship, especially in relation to water intensive industries including agriculture. Globally agriculture accounts for 70% of water withdrawals and is the single largest producer of wastewater in the world by volume. (FAO, WRI, COP, Nature Sustainability, Earth's Future).
From a coffee perspective - it was wonderful to meet Kieran Youngman from Löfbergs who are a partner of Project Waterfall and Pontus Rosberg from Karma Coffee who came to a joint event organised by Project Waterfall and Millennium Water Alliance (MWA) where we shared some key findings from the 'Oromia Coffee Project' in Ethiopia. This research project focused on reusing post harvest wet mill wastewater to conserve water and to mitigate effluence running into the local waterways and improving the community drinking water systems for smallholder coffee farming communities who live very rurally without access to electricity.
It was also wonderful to meet other experts and people from a variety of water focused NGOS and to know that we're part of a community that is working together to address such complex, systemic issues! I have left feeling very inspired and motivated to work with the coffee sector and its partners to take action to invest in both the environmental and social aspects of WASH that is fundamental to the security of a healthy, resilient coffee supply chain.