Water stewardship is the responsible management of freshwater resources across an agricultural or processing operation, balancing production needs with ecosystem and community requirements, and is increasingly assessed by EU buyers as part of sustainability due diligence.
In trade practice
Suppliers may be asked to document irrigation volumes, wash-water recycling rates and wastewater treatment methods as part of buyer questionnaires or third-party audits. Schemes such as the Alliance for Water Stewardship provide a formal certification framework, while GLOBALG.A.P. and organic standards include water-related criteria. A common gap is the absence of metered consumption records, which makes it difficult to demonstrate efficiency improvements. Processing facilities should maintain water-use logs aligned with their environmental management system.
In a specification
A sustainability annex to a supply agreement may require the supplier to hold or work towards a recognised water stewardship certification or to provide annual water-use data against agreed baseline metrics.