Water is at the heart of everything—our health, our communities and planet. Yet today, clean water is hard to access for billions of people around the world. About two out of three people globally (61%) live in areas where total water storage is declining, and more than a third (38%) live where it is diminishing at extreme rates.

As outlined in Abbott’s 2030 Sustainability Plan, water stewardship is a priority for Abbott. To help protect this critical resource and ensure our work has the greatest positive impact, we're focusing our efforts where it's needed most: in areas already facing water stress, where the demand for water exceeds the available supply to meet local community needs.

By 2030, we aim to implement accredited water stewardship management practices at more than 75% of our manufacturing sites operating in water-stressed areas. And in those areas where we have manufacturing sites using significant amounts of water, 11 in total, we’re working to earn water stewardship certifications. We're also committed to working with 50 key suppliers to reduce water quality and quantity risks.

We do this through our four water principles:

1. Reduce: Improve how efficiently we use water.
2. Prevent: Carefully manage how water leaves our sites.
3. Engage: Develop and follow best practices across our company.
4. Educate: Help our employees, suppliers and communities understand why water conservation matters.

Since we set our goals in 2020, we’ve already seen progress. Seven Abbott sites have received important Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS) certifications to date, with four more targeted by 2030. 

Solving a Global Challenge with Local Solutions

Abbott is committed to advancing health while reducing our environmental impact. This includes our water stewardship work in our own operations, but it also includes collaboration with local communities – an important part of achieving AWS certification.

Every community has different needs, so we work closely with local partners to make sure our efforts are effective and sustainable. In some instances, we have established initiatives that address the most pressing local needs — whether that’s quality, quantity or other concerns for those who rely on this precious natural resource. A few examples of the work we’re doing worldwide include:

United States

Since 2009, we've worked with the state of Arizona’s Project WET to create a culture of water conservation in local communities near our nutrition plant in Casa Grande. Arizona Project WET aims to engage and educate local communities, residents, K-12 schools and businesses in Pinal County, Arizona to raise awareness of current and future challenges to Arizona’s water resources and the conservation solutions available.

With support from Abbott Fund, Project WET facilitates opportunities and trains Abbott experts on how to share best practices in saving water with local small businesses, homeowners and schools, as well as expand education programs for students. In 2023, more than 2,700 educators, students and families benefited from these programs. To date, we've reached nearly 30,000 people through this outreach.

We also implemented a project in Casa Grande to optimize water recovery through our reverse osmosis system – used to purify and filter water – to optimize the filtration process and increase the amount of water recovered. This resulted in annual water savings of about 6.6 million gallons per year in that location.

Singapore

Our Singapore facility is another site that operates in a water stressed area. That’s why Abbott set out to implement several programs in Singapore to save water. For example, our nutrition facility implemented a project to divert various water streams for use in our cooling tower – which is projected to save about 12.1 million gallons of water every year at this site.

In addition to saving water, the Abbott team in Singapore has conducted many AWS-related activities to increase awareness of water stewardship, including the Waterway Watch Cleanup and a Walk for Water, among other programs to encourage safe water, sanitation and hygiene.

India 

At our medicines manufacturing site in Baddi, India, we recently initiated a project focused on reusing water, resulting in annual water savings of about 6.9 million gallons.

Successful water management should also consider local water needs. During a sanitation and hygiene survey, local village authorities informed Abbott of a lack of suitable drinking water for children in government schools. Students were drinking water coming directly from storage tanks without any kind of treatment.

Abbott approached the school principals to help find a solution. We installed reverse osmosis systems to filter the water supply, providing approximately 750 students with better quality drinking water.

Looking Ahead: 2030 and Beyond

Abbott’s commitment to water stewardship is an ongoing journey as we work toward our 2030 Sustainability Plan goals and beyond, with continuous tracking and adaptation to meet both global and local needs.

Through conservation and innovative partnerships, we’re helping to protect water sustainability for the future, supporting the health and resilience of communities, environments and ecosystems.