Freshwater Change
Transgressed: freshwater change is among the seven boundaries breached in the 2025 Planetary Health Check. It was first assessed as crossed in the Stockholm Resilience Centre's 2023 update, which found six boundaries transgressed.
Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes. Others must also act.
Why shareholder democracy is necessary
Agriculture takes about 72 percent of global freshwater withdrawals, and 60 percent of irrigated agriculture already faces extremely high water stress. The actors that decide water use are therefore farming plus the beverage, mining, semiconductor, data-center and apparel companies with large direct withdrawals. Food companies whose sourcing drives irrigation demand also decide it. If listed companies set basin-level withdrawal limits, required efficient irrigation from growers, and stopped financing wetland conversion and destructive dams, corporate and supply-chain pressure on rivers, aquifers and soil moisture would fall. Ceres' Valuing Water Finance Initiative already engages 71 companies on exactly this, though its 2025 benchmark finds only half target high-risk basins. Joint investor letters supported by the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, from more than 60 investors managing 2.6 trillion dollars, urged 15 food and beverage companies to disclose and manage their water risks. Investor action after the Brumadinho dam disaster shows conduct can be moved: the Church of England Pensions Board drove the Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management. The allocation system itself stays public. Governments grant water rights, subsidize pumping, and manage rivers and aquifers, and most farms drawing the water are small and unlisted. Owners supply a necessary input and can end corporate resistance to allocation reform, while public water governance must also change.
How this was scoredNecessary
Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes. Others must also act.
We have not yet written down the two answers behind this rating. Recording them on every item, so a reader can check the reasoning and not only the conclusion, is work in progress.
Every rating is the higher of two answers, one for what companies do and one for what they spend to stop the outcome, because the same vote reaches both. See the full method.
Sources
- Planetary boundaries, Stockholm Resilience Centre, 2025 (2023 update described)
- FAO: 2025 AQUASTAT Water Data, UN-Water, 2026-01-12
- 25 Countries, Housing One-quarter of the Population, Face Extremely High Water Stress, World Resources Institute, 2023-08-16
- 2025 Valuing Water Finance Initiative Benchmark, Ceres, 2025
- Church of England Pensions Board instrumental in launch of Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management, Church of England, 2020-08-05
- Leading Global Investors Urge Food and Beverage Companies to Better Manage Water Risks, Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, 2015-08-19
What civil society organizations are helping owners on this
Supported, with Ceres and the PRI, a 2015 letter from more than 60 investors managing 2.6 trillion dollars asking 15 food and beverage companies to disclose and strengthen their management of water risk.
Runs the Valuing Water Finance Initiative, whose 2025 benchmark of 71 water-intensive companies found only half of those with water targets consider local conditions in high-risk basins.
Filed a 2022 proposal asking Alphabet to disclose location-specific water use and mitigation plans for data centers in water-stressed regions.
5 campaigns on record
Provide quantitative, location-specific water use data and disclose plans to mitigate water risks at data centers in water-stressed regions.
Result: 22.6 percent of votes overall; 64 percent of independent shareholders
Recognize water as a financial risk and meet six corporate expectations covering water-quantity management, water-quality protection, ecosystem protection, sanitation access, board oversight, and responsible water-related public policy engagement, by 2030.
With Mercy Investment Services, other institutional investor signatories
Result: not a proxy vote; an ongoing multi-year engagement and annual benchmarking effort
Chipotle and Domino's Pizza are cited by Mercy Investment Services as companies that had already made commitments under the initiative as of 2023; Ceres publishes an annual benchmark tracking company progress.
Publicly disclose every tailings facility worldwide and answer 20 governance and safety questions, and adopt an independent global standard for tailings management.
Result: 45 of the 50 largest mining companies participated, representing 87 percent of the sector by market capitalisation, with over 1,800 dams disclosed for the first time
The Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management launched in 2020; over 68 percent of listed companies by capitalisation committed to implement it or work toward doing so, and a public global tailings portal was created.
The Investor Mining and Tailings Safety Initiative, Church of England Pensions Board, 2024
Develop comprehensive water stewardship policies covering permitted releases to waterways, safe storage and management of animal waste, and fertilizer runoff from feed production.
With ACTIAM, Tri-State Coalition for Responsible Investment, Christian Brothers Investment Services
Result: not stated in source
Disclose additional water risk information through the CDP Water Questionnaire within a year and strengthen water management and disclosure practices.
With CalSTRS, Calvert Investments, Pax World Management, Mirova, Tri-State Coalition for Responsible Investment
Result: not stated in source
How this rating was made
Every item on every one of our maps is read against one question: how far does this depend on the people who own companies voting their values? We answer it twice, once for what companies do and once for what they spend to stop the outcome, and take whichever answer is higher, since the same vote reaches both. The score carries its reasoning and its sources so that a reader can check it rather than take it.
- Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
- Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes, and others must also act.
- Helpful. Owners voting their values help, and others carry most of it.
- Independent. This moves without owners. Other levers carry it.
The advocacy record on this page holds only what a source we opened says happened. Where we searched and found nothing, the page says so rather than leaving a silence. Where a campaign names a filer the source does not name, it says that too. Ratings are ours; the list of subjects is Doughnut Economics's, and we link to their original.
How we score dependency, in full.