Water work at Origin
Roughly a 2 minute read
Water is one of the world’s most precious natural resources. It’s key to healthy ecosystems and energy and food production. For many of us, it’s easy to take water for granted. Most of us are never more than a few feet away from the nearest tap.
But access to decent water isn’t universal. According to the United Nations (UN) 785 million people remain without even basic drinking water. This is true of people living in some of the countries that we source our tea and coffee from.
Gathering water can often mean undertaking several walks a day to the nearest source, which can take at least half an hour for each trip — a task which tends to fall to women and children. And even once water is found it won’t be consistently clean and drinking it can lead to health problems.
Improving access to fresh water
Since 2012 we’ve spent over half a million pounds helping to fund 51 different water projects in ten countries. Our projects adopt a long-term approach but range in size and scale, from installing covers on rainwater harvesting tanks to protect the water from contamination and pests, to building water pipelines to increase access for entire communities. We’ve also invested in schemes to protect natural water sources from contamination by planting trees as an ecological buffer.
In the planning of the projects, communication with suppliers is vital. We work closely with them to understand what they need and how best we can help. For example, in 2017 Taylors invested £20,000 in a project proposed by some of our coffee suppliers in Rwanda. This project not only increased access to safe water by building a pipeline to bring it closer to the communities and reduce their daily commute; but it also improved the quality of the natural water sources by installing a recirculation system. This reduces the water used in coffee processing and consequently made wastewater containing any organic pollutants easier to manage, lowering the amount of pollution reaching the river. This project directly benefitted over 3115 farmers and their families.
Over the last 7 years at least 35,000 people and 10,000 families have benefitted from projects we have helped fund, with more than 5000 children being direct beneficiaries. We plan to continue working with our suppliers at origin to improve their access to clean water and their quality of life, as well as equipping them and their enterprises in order to be better placed to face the challenges of the future.
Last updated 9th December 2019