AstraZeneca has announced a new collaboration with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Sweden.

The twelve-month partnership will focus on identifying opportunities to improve the company’s approach and strategy towards water stewardship and identify initial opportunities to engage in on-the-ground water projects in the river basins where AstraZeneca operates.

Science-Based Targets for Water

Together with experts from the global water stewardship team at WWF, the company will analyze the physical, reputational and regulatory water risks within WWF’s Water Risk Filter across its global operations to establish how it can strengthen its water stewardship programme.

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The company’s longer-term ambition is to implement Science-Based Targets for Water, once a global methodology is available, to lead the way on water stewardship for the pharmaceutical industry. This approach will ensure that it can more meaningfully contribute to the sustainable management of water resources within river basins, it states.

“We have bold ambitions when it comes to water stewardship and are excited to collaborate with WWF to reach them. We hope too that this work contributes to a greater industry-wide focus on our impact on water and the broader environment,” says Katarina Ageborg, EVP Sustainability and Chief Compliance Officer at AstraZeneca. “Health is at the heart of what we do, and we know that a healthy planet means healthy people. Not only this, but water is key to pharmaceutical production, so it makes business sense for us to manage this resource responsibly.”

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Photo: Katarina Ageborg, CEO of AstraZeneca Sweden. Photo: Jenny Öhman/Nordic Life Science