Target 6.b: Local community participation in water management
Support and strengthen the participation of local communities in improving water and sanitation management
Owners voting their values help. Others must carry most of it.
Why shareholder democracy is helpful
Community participation in water and sanitation management is established by national law and policy. UN-Water tracks it as the number of six sub-sectors in which local communities participate at a high level, with a world average of three out of six in 2024. Large corporate water users shape participation where they operate. If beverage, mining, agribusiness and utility companies gave communities a real voice in basin decisions and supported participatory procedures in law, the outcome would advance in those basins. Ceres' 2025 benchmark concludes corporate water stewardship can play a greater role in advancing justice and equity for communities. The core of the target is procedures for participation across urban and rural water, sanitation and hygiene programs. Those are written and run by governments and local authorities outside corporate reach. Owners 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
Through the Valuing Water Finance Initiative, asks companies to support access to water, sanitation and hygiene as one of six Corporate Expectations, and its 2025 benchmark concludes that corporate water stewardship strategies can play a greater role in advancing justice and equity for communities.
2025 Valuing Water Finance Initiative Benchmark, Ceres, 2025
1 campaign on record
Embed support for access to water, sanitation and hygiene into corporate strategy and advance justice and equity for the communities where the company operates, as part of the 2030 Corporate Expectations for Valuing Water.
Result: The benchmark finds that most companies have yet to embed water, sanitation and hygiene considerations into corporate strategies, and that companies are improving public policy engagement but gaps remain.
2025 Valuing Water Finance Initiative Benchmark, Ceres, 2025
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.