South African retailer Woolworths will celebrate this year’s National Water Week, from March 18 to 24, by highlighting the country’s water challenges through in-store communication, social media messaging and awareness programmes for its employees.

The programmes include water efficiency tips for customers and staff that are aimed at encouraging them to change their water behaviour.

Woolworths head of sustainability Justin Smith says the company is committed to water conservation and is educating its supply chain as well as providing valuable water-saving advice to customers and employees.

The retailer has implemented several programmes and water-saving systems to ensure its operations are sustainable and it hopes to reduce the water use of its produce suppliers by up to 30% by 2015 through its Farming for the Future (FFF) programme.

The initiative, which forms part of the company’s sustainability programme, Good Business Journey, was launched in 2009 and has helped save about 720-million cubic metres of water since 2011, owing to improved irrigation and upgrades to old water systems.

Through the FFF programme, Woolworths’ produce farmers are regularly audited to ensure their farming operations are sustainable. Woolworths’ organic farmers are audited separately as part of their certification requirements.

The programme also takes the possible contamination of freshwater into account and encourages the conservative use of chemicals in fertilisers and pesticides.

“The key to the success of the FFF is soil health. Healthy soil requires less irrigation, as it is able to retain water better. Soil erosion and the loss of topsoil are also reduced. Healthy soil also requires fewer chemical interventions, resulting in less chemical runoff into water systems and, subsequently, in good water quality. Using fewer chemicals and pesticides also contributes to maintaining and encouraging biodiversity,” says Smith.

Further, Woolworths has invested in a water treatment plant for its head office, in Cape Town, to significantly reduce municipal water use.

Smith says water use at head office has decreased by 30% and that the company is saving the Cape Town municipality more than 27-million litres of water a year.

He emphasises that South Africa is a water-scarce country and that Woolworths will continue to focus on water reductions and the management of wastewater in its food supply chain.

As a result, from 2009, the retailer installed water-measuring systems in most Woolworths stores across the country. Smith says the stores have shown a 10% decrease in relative water use.

Woolworths has also succeeded in becoming ‘water neutral’, says Smith, referring to the company’s investment in the World Wide Fund for Nature South Africa’s (WWF-SA’s) Water Balance programme in 2009, which clears water-sapping invasive alien plants and deals with issues that threaten water supply.

WWF-SA reports that about 7% of South Africa’s average yearly runoff is used by alien and invasive plants.

Water balance in this case, Smith explains, is achieved when the water that is made available, owing to the work done by the WWF-SA programme Woolworths helps fund, offsets the company’s yearly water use.

The WWF-SA’s Water Balance programme encourages companies to become water neutral and it was launched in conjunction with government’s Working for Water programme.

“The programme has multiple objectives: to reduce the impact of invasive alien plants on our water supplies, improve the productive potential of land, restore biodiversity and ecosystem functions, as well as to create jobs and economic empowerment for the workers removing alien plants,” Smith states.

As part of its investment in the water-neutral programme, Woolworths is eliminating inva- sive alien plants on suppliers’ farms and in protected areas such as the Tankwa Karoo National Park, in the Northern Cape.

Meanwhile, Smith reveals that Woolworths also hopes to implement water- and energy- saving initiatives to reduce consumption in the manufacturing of 60% of its clothing products by 2015.

He says Woolworths’ supplier code of conduct includes a chemical practices code, which all suppliers are required to comply with, and ensures that none of the materials, dyes or chemicals used in the manufacturing of Woolworths’ clothing or textiles pose a major risk to health or the environment during manufacturing or disposal.

In light of this year’s National Water Week, he further suggests family water-saving ideas, such as repairing leaking taps, harvesting rain or grey water for garden use, choosing water-wise plants, mulching, installing low-flow shower heads and comparing the water efficiencies of washing machines and dishwashers.

Smith says Woolworths’ Good Business Journey programme is part of the essence of the company’s brand, is key to its business strategy and provides a significant competi- tive advantage. It has also positioned the company as a responsible investment choice locally and internationally.

“With the support of our suppliers, customers and partners, we can do a lot more to support the planet and people through our products. The sustainability targets we have set ourselves to reach by 2015 are the most ambitious and comprehensive in the retail sector,” he claims.

The company’s water-conservation efforts were recognised by Forbes Magazine, which listed Woolworths as one of the ten most innovative companies in South Africa in July 2012.

The World Economic Forum also named the retailer as one of the 16 sustainability champions in the developing world in 2011 and it won the award for International Responsible Retailer of the Year for the third time at the World Retail Congress, in London, last year.