Target 6.1: Safe and affordable drinking water for all

By 2030, achieve universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all

Helpful Owners voting their values help. Others must carry most of it.

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Why shareholder democracy is helpful

Universal safe drinking water is overwhelmingly a public-provision problem. Some 2.1 billion people lacked safely managed water in 2024. The World Bank puts the cost of reaching targets 6.1 and 6.2 at about $114 billion a year, roughly three times current spending. Private operators serve only about 10 percent of the world's population, so the unserved live mostly where utilities are municipal or absent. Imagine every listed company treating this target as core. Water utilities such as American Water Works, Veolia and Severn Trent would extend service and stop resisting contaminant limits. Chemical makers would end PFAS discharges, banks would finance treatment plants, and engineering firms would build them. That would matter most in rich countries, where the corporate lobbying obstacle is real. The American Chemistry Council called the EPA's PFAS drinking-water standard inconsistent with the science and an unfunded mandate. AWWA and AMWA petitioned for judicial review of the rule. EWG attributes the 2026 rollback of limits on four PFAS and the delay of PFOA and PFOS compliance to 2031 to years of lobbying by utilities and industrial polluters. Yet WHO reports at least 1.7 billion people use a drinking water source contaminated with feces. It identifies microbial contamination, not industrial chemicals, as the greatest risk to drinking-water safety. Most of the outcome therefore sits with governments, donors and households. Owners voting their values help at the margin.

How this was scoredHelpful

Helpful. Owners voting their values help. Others must carry most of it.

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

What civil society organizations are helping owners on this

Ceres☆ Followcoordinator

Runs the Valuing Water Finance Initiative, an investor-led engagement that asks large corporate water users to meet science-based water expectations, including that they do not harm water quality across their value chain and that they contribute to universal and equitable access to water, sanitation and hygiene.

Valuing Water Finance Initiative, Ceres

2 campaigns on record

Green Century Capital Management at Chemours☆ Follow2026 · engagement

Improve protection of water, air and land near the company's mining operations.

Result: the company committed to enhanced environmental protection efforts and the engagement is listed among the season's advocacy wins

2026 Shareholder Season Highlights, Green Century Capital Management, 2026

Ceres, on behalf of participating investors at 71 companies across the apparel, beverage, food and high-tech sectors☆ Follow2022 · engagement

Meet six science-based corporate expectations on water by 2030, including causing no negative impact on water quality across the value chain and contributing to universal and equitable access to water, sanitation and hygiene in the communities the company affects.

Result: not stated in source

Valuing Water Finance Initiative, Ceres

Related subjects on other maps

Explore more goals the world has agreed on

UN Sustainable Development Goals, every item scored for how far it depends on owners voting their values, with the reasoning and the sources behind each rating.

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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 UN Sustainable Development Goals's, and we link to their original.

How we score dependency, in full.