SOURCE: Cummins Inc.
DESCRIPTION:
Global power leader Cummins Inc. has announced a new global community program called Cummins Water Works to address the global water crisis by partnering with leading water experts and investing and engaging in sustainable, large-scale, high-impact water projects around the world.
The new community program is supported initially by $8 million in Cummins grants focusing on five of the most water-stressed countries: Mexico, Brazil, India, South Africa and the United States. By 2025, Cummins Water Works wants to bring fresh water to 20 million people who would not otherwise have access to it, while striving to produce net water benefits that exceed Cummins’ annual water use in all company regions by 2030, and in all Cummins communities by 2050.
Today, 785 million people worldwide – one in nine – lack access to safe water. By 2050, at least one in four people will likely live in a country affected by chronic or recurring water shortages.
“The water crisis affects so many issues that are important to us in our communities, including health, education, gender equity, and economic opportunity,” said Mary Chandler, Vice President of Corporate Responsibility and Community Relations at Cummins. “We are working to address climate change across all aspects of the company – improving our operations, developing new products and working closely with our customers and suppliers.”
Cummins has joined the United Nations’ Water Resilience Coalition, which connects the company with water-related non-profit organizations and more than a dozen major global companies focused collectively on analyzing, prioritizing, implementing, and managing high-impact water projects in major water-stressed regions around the world. Cummins will also partner with two global nonprofit organizations, The Nature Conservancy and Water.org.
Initial and projected projects include working with The Nature Conservancy to help plan and engage in projects in Brazil, India and the United States that are primarily focused upstream on improving, repairing, and strengthening primary water sources that communities depend on. Working with Water.org, Cummins will help plan and engage in projects in Brazil, India and Mexico, that are primarily focused downstream, on improving water cost, quality, and availability in communities.
The initiative is part of PLANET 2050, the company’s environmental sustainability strategy. The plan includes 2030 goals for Cummins aligned to the Paris Agreement on climate change and the aspiration to be carbon neutral by 2050.
KEYWORDS: NYSE:CMI, Cummins Inc., Cummins, clean water, Water Works initiative, Sustainable
