CASE STUDY 11 CEO-led partnership and financing to advance water action by businesses in water-stressed basins Organizations: Water Resilience Coalition (WRC) – Ecolab, AB InBev, Starbucks, Gap, Reckitt, DuPont, Diageo, Dow, Microsoft, PVH Corp, The Coca-Cola Company (TCCC), HEINEKEN, Levi Strauss & Co., Woolworths. Description: The CEO Water Mandate, an initiative of the UN Global Compact, partnered with global companies to launch the WRC, an industry-driven, CEO-led initiative pledging to preserve freshwater resources through collective action in water-stressed basins and setting the following commitments by 2050: –Deliver net-positive water impact in water-stressed basins, focusing on the availability, quality and accessibility of freshwater resources. –Develop, implement and enable strategies for water resilient value chains. –Raise the ambition of water resilience through global leadership. An example of the WRC’s work includes the launch of the WRC Investment Portfolio and the WaterEquity Global Access Fund IV. Five WRC member companies (Ecolab, Starbucks, Gap, Reckitt, DuPont) partnered to invest with the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, pooling together resources and bringing the investment fund total to $150 million. Sources: See endnotes.98,99,100 CASE STUDY 12 Private sector-led initiative to accelerate collective action between private, public and non-profit sectors to achieve a water-resilient future for California Organizations: Pacific Institute, Ecolab, General Mills, LimnoTech. Description: The California Water Resilience Initiative (CWRI), launched in 2023, is a time-bound, private sector-led initiative to accelerate collective action across sectors to achieve a water-resilient future for California. It was established to support the ambitions of the CEO Water Mandate’s Water Resilience Coalition to mobilize corporate water stewardship in pursuit of positive water impact in 100 basins globally. Following predictions by state scientists that California will face a 10% supply gap by 2040, CWRI has set a target to reduce, reuse and restore one million acre-feet of water per year by 2030 and 1.8 million by 2040. CWRI is managed by Pacific Institute, with Ecolab as basin champion, General Mills as basin leader and LimnoTech as technical advisor. By creating new types of partnerships, scaling- up existing efforts and enabling innovative solutions, CWRI is accelerating corporate engagement in California to help close the water-demand gap. Source: See endnote.101 Water Futures: Mobilizing Multi-Stakeholder Action for Resilience 37

Water Futures Mobilizing Multi Stakeholder Action for Resilience 2025