We depend on local water supplies, so understanding water catchment* health and sustainability is extremely important to our business.
Protecting our water catchments
Coca-Cola Amatil (CCA) has undertaken plant-level training and management tools to help employees understand watershed issues, and over time looks to engage with communities, governments, conservation organisations and other companies to help manage them.
Case Study: Peats Ridge Springs
Since the purchase of the Peats Ridge Springs water business in 2003, CCA has worked hard to ensure it is one of the best-managed and monitored water sources in Australia.
Around $5 million has been invested on hydro-geological surveys, technology and equipment to enable measurement and monitoring of standing water levels around the clock. This information is used to ensure our water is fully sustainable.
We report daily on our standing water levels to the NSW Government and the local council, making Peats Ridge Springs arguably one of the most scrutinised and transparent water sources in Australia.
We have also engaged with local water protection groups, including the Hawkesbury-Nepean Catchment Management Authority and Landcare, to scope a project which would measure water use in the Mangrove Mountain/Peats Ridge area. Furthermore we have contributed funds to a local land management study called ‘The Future of Farming’.
Peats Ridge Springs operations uses around 2% of the groundwater allocated for use in the area and, to our knowledge, is the only major water user in the area that has its water use stringently, regularly and publicly monitored and measured.
*A water catchment is an area of land where water from rain and melting snow or ice drains downhill into a body of water, such as a river, lake, reservoir, estuary, wetland, sea or ocean.