Water Stewardship with Food Retailers

Collectively addressing water risks through water stewardship initiatives with food retailers

Germany

2018 - 2019

Client

WWF Germany

Beneficiaries

German Food Retailers

German food retailing (LEH) is a competitive sector in which retailers do not cooperate or cooperate only to a minimal extent. How can such a sector be systemically influenced to initiate collaborative solutions to water risks?

We supported WWF Germany in important steps towards collective action in the food retail sector with our expertise in water stewardship and multi-stakeholder participatory processes. The main focus was to demonstrate the need for collective action, build trust, motivate representatives of the food retail sector to pursue solutions, and develop possible pathways to solve shared water risks.

To support WWF in contributing to water stewardship along global value chains of food retailers and at the level of river basins, we provided technical advice and participatory process facilitation. The activities that we conducted were:

Explore and discover

Through joint work sessions, research, and consultations with potential project partners, we supported the WWF team in developing a concept for industry collaboration to reduce water risks in the food retail sector.

Co-create and design

We worked closely with the Water Stewardship Team to provide technical and process-oriented support towards coordinating the concept with LEH representatives and other players in the German food industry.

Reach and connect

We developed the concept, elaborated content and materials, moderated and documented a Water Stewardship Workshop with relevant German food retailers representatives.