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Safeguarding springs
Last update july 2012
:: In 1992 Danone helped create Apieme, an innovative association of local stakeholders dedicated to protecting the Evian spring by encouraging the growth of non-polluting businesses around the catchment area. But Apieme is not merely an environmental project: it also gets local associations and governments involved in preserving the Evian ecosystem.
This model has now been extended to other springs that supply the group, including Volvic in France, Villavicencio in Argentina, Aqua in Indonesia, Bonafont in Mexico and Salus in Uruguay.
In Poland, where leading brand ywiec Zdrój collects its water high in the mountains, a Danone campaign is raising awareness of the need to protect trees—essential to maintaining the region’s environment balance—and Poland’s government and NGOs have rallied to the cause. Thanks to their involvement, some 390,000 parents and teachers and nearly 30,000 schoolchildren have helped plant a million trees.
All over the world, winning support from civil society has proved to be the best way of preserving local resources.
In Indonesia, Aqua’s springs are protected by a broad range of environmental initiatives, including recycling and managing the rural ecosystem to maintain economic activity and preserve jobs, and the Danone Ecosystem Fund has launched a program to improve living conditions for the local population and limit rural flight. Our project in Klaten, where one of Aqua’s springs is located, manages water, promotes sustainable farming practices and supports local farm cooperatives. By the end of its first phase in November 2011, the project had helped 500 farmers gain access to micro-credit and created 30 new jobs. More broadly, by becoming involved with local populations, Danone has won the trust of the Indonesian people. Today Aqua holds a 60% share of the bottled water market and is still growing—sustainably.
