Target 6.6: Protect water-related ecosystems
By 2020, protect and restore water-related ecosystems, including mountains, forests, wetlands, rivers, aquifers and lakes
Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes. Others must also act.
Why shareholder democracy is necessary
Water-related ecosystems are degraded by agricultural conversion, pollution, abstraction, dams and mining. At least 400 million hectares of wetlands have been lost since 1970, and nearly a quarter of those remaining are degraded. The razing and filling of wetlands for agriculture, urban settlement and industrialization is among the top drivers. UNEP finds that only 38 percent of the environment-related Sustainable Development Goal indicators it tracks worldwide show improvement. Listed agribusiness, food and mining companies drive or finance much of that pressure. So do chemical, hydropower, engineering and lending companies. If they excluded wetland conversion from supply chains, stopped tailings and effluent releases, financed restoration and lobbied for protection rules, a large share of the pressure would ease. Investor action after Brumadinho shows conduct can be moved: the Church of England Pensions Board and allied investors drove the Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management. Investor pressure on agricultural polluters is already organized; the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility and Ceres coordinated 45 investors asking major meat producers to cut permitted discharges and fertilizer runoff into rivers and streams. Ceres' benchmark finds companies engage in freshwater ecosystem projects but few set targets for positive impact. Much still sits beyond corporate reach. Governments own and manage most protected areas, rivers and aquifers. State utilities and public projects build many dams, and smallholders and informal settlement drive much conversion. Owners therefore supply a necessary input and can remove corporate opposition to wetland and river protection, while public authorities must still protect and restore.
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
- Global Wetland Outlook 2025, Convention on Wetlands (Ramsar), 2025-07-15
- Humans Are Wiping Out Water Bodies That Life Depends On, New Report Says, Inside Climate News, 2025-07-15
- Measuring Progress: Water-related ecosystems and the SDGs, UN Environment Programme, 2023-03-13
- Church of England Pensions Board instrumental in launch of Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management, Church of England, 2020-08-05
- 2025 Valuing Water Finance Initiative Benchmark, Ceres, 2025
- Valuing Water Finance Initiative, Ceres, n.d. (accessed 2026-08)
- Leading Investors Press Meat Producers to Tackle Water Pollution Risks, Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, 2016-11-21
What civil society organizations are helping owners on this
Co-organized with Ceres letters from 45 investors asking Cargill, JBS, Perdue and Smithfield to adopt water stewardship policies addressing animal waste and fertilizer runoff into waterways.
Filed shareholder proposals at Chemours to keep titanium mining away from the Okefenokee wetland ecosystem and to require biodiversity assessments before mining in sensitive areas.
Okefenokee Swamp protected from mining, for now, Green Century Capital Management, 2025-07
2 campaigns on record
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.
Disclose within 45 days full information on every tailings storage facility and its safety management, and support an independent global tailings standard.
Result: not stated in source
The Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management was established, the Global Tailings Portal was created to monitor disclosures, and the Global Tailings Management Institute was announced in January 2023.
Investor Mining and Tailings Safety Initiative, The Church of England, undated
Related subjects on other maps
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.