Working Groups
Water Committee
The Water Committee was originally launched as The Water and Agriculture Working Group in 2007 to develop guidelines and practical tools for sustainably managing water at farm level.
In 2014, it became the Water Committee and existed until 2016, when it was incorporated into the Horizon Committee.
Its original aims were to:
- Maintain the safety and quality of agricultural products.
- Improve the economic viability of farms and encourage water management practices.
- Increase the protection of environmental ecosystems by collecting polluted runoffs.
During its existence, the Water Committee worked on groundbreaking projects with multinationals that included Coca-Cola, Kellogg, Nestlé, McCain and Unilever.
Key achievements
- 2009: Publishing the discussion paper ‘Accounting, Impact and Mitigating Water Footprint at Field Level’.
- 2010: Creating the 'Principles and Practices for the Sustainable Management of Water at Farm Level'.
- 2010: Developing technical briefs to better understand some of the related challenges and tools available to tackle them.
- 2011: Creating a Water Impact Calculator as a result of a pilot project in India with ICRISAT.
- 2012: Publishing the ‘Water Stewardship in Sustainable Agriculture – Beyond the Farm Towards a Catchment Approach’ report.
- 2014: Organising a workshop on water stewardship in Seville.
- 2015: Publishing the ‘Water Stewardship in Sustainable Agriculture – Farm and Catchment Level Assessment report’.
- 2016: Creating the Farm Water Assessment tool.
