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Arch-ecologists at the WWF and arch-consumption backers at Coca-Cola raise their glasses to each other to improve water resources. Five years ago I would have thought this was a joke if someone had mentioned it.

This is what has just happened, with the two signing an agreement to save water resources around the world. True, $20 million is just a drop in the bucket, so to speak, for a company whose net operating revenue in 2006 was $24 billion.

Another $7 million was pledged by the soft-drinks manufacturer in March to work with USAid on water resources. I hope all the skeptics in the room slink

out the back door: we need more of this kind of partnership. The
corporate world is slowly but surely learning to think more about the
planet, with this year’s abrupt focus on global climate change making
the subject impossible to avoid. Geneva-based Procter & Gamble
is taking a hard look at the impact of its products and related
consumer behaviour. It is developing water sustainability guidelines
for product development. The company is also developing systems to
treat and recycle water in the home.

At the same time, the world of non-profits, international
organizations and NGOs (non-governmental organizations) is slowly but
surely becoming more business-like. A middle ground, a place to talk,
is emerging. We will all be the better for it.

Sustainable development on a local level, the canton of Geneva, is a point of focus Saturday with the Sustainable Development Festival
at the city’s botanical gardens. Geneva is the rare city where the leap
from local to global and vice versa can be made quickly because it is
home to such a large number of multinational head or regional offices
as well as to many international non-profits. Where better to create
strong business/NGO partnerships? Happily, the process has started. One
of the strong voices is that of the Geneva-based World Business Council for Sustainable Development.

Proof there are common threads, a basis for more partnerships:

(Coca-Cola chairman and CEO E Neville Isdell, speaking to the US Chamber of Commerce, April 2007)

"I want to be clear here. Business exists to make a profit and to create economic returns for its shareowners. The Coca-Cola
Company is not a social service agency or an NGO. But these issues have
everything to do with sustainable communities, and therefore with the
health of business. The most effective way to address them is through
partnerships."

(Kemal Dervis, administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, speaking in Berlin, Germany, on World Environment Day)

"This world-wide realization that we cannot
afford to wait any longer to respond to climate change sets the stage
for coordinated action. The first is in the conservation and
sustainable use of biodiversity . . . The
second area we are highlighting today is the tremendous untapped
resource carbon finance represents for developing countries. While the
financial benefits of the rapidly expanding, billion-dollar
international market for carbon credits has rewarded some, many more
have missed out. Today in Berlin we are launching the UNDP MDG Carbon
Facility

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