125 Public Interest Leaders Urge U.N. to Withdraw Support from CEO Water Mandate

New York - Leaders from more than 125 environmental, public health, water justice, human rights and corporate accountability organizations in 35 countries, are urging United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon to withdraw his support from the CEO Water Mandate.

The CEO Water Mandate is a voluntary initiative that is being promoted as a way for corporations to make progress toward protecting water resources.

Corporations like Coca-Cola, Nestlé, Suez and others that have joined the CEO Water Mandate have drawn criticism from around the world for practices that threaten people’s access to water. Organizations delivered the letter to coincide with the U.N.’s World Water Day, to call attention to the threats posed by corporate control of public water resources.

“Although the stated purpose of the CEO Water Mandate is to make progress toward protecting water resources,” says Tony Clarke of the Polaris Institute in Canada, “we are concerned that it is really a thinly veiled public relations effort by for-profit corporations to gain greater control over water resources and services around the world. This is a prime example of ‘greenwashing’ and the U.N. should not be giving it credibility and support.”

“The United Nations should play a vital and active role toward protecting water as a human right and ecological trust,” says Rafael Colmenares of the Comité Nacional en Defensa del Agua y de la Vida in Colombia. “Instead, through the CEO Water Mandate, the U.N. is helping to advance corporate control of water.”

“Corporations like Coca-Cola, Suez and Nestlé are trying to turn water into a high-priced commodity, the oil of the 21st century,” says Kathryn Mulvey of Corporate Accountability International in the United States. “This presents a grave threat to people’s access to water. The United Nations needs to stand up for public, democratic control of a resource that is essential to life.”

Please read the letter attached below: