Beverage Special: PepsiCo donates again to water conservation project

PepsiCo Greater China Region unveiled on Nov 6 the inauguration of the "Safe Drinking Water Campus Entry" program and PepsiCo's latest donation to "Water Cellars for Mothers" project in Housuo Primary School of Luliang, Yunnan province.

PepsiCo also donated 800,000 yuan ($128,000) to the "Water Cellars for Mothers" project of the China Women's Development Foundation (CWDF) of the All-China Women's Federation.

PepsiCo has contributed more than 52 million yuan in the past 12 years, becoming the largest multinational corporate donor of the project.

At the donation ceremony, Tim Minges, chairman of PepsiCo Greater China Region, said PepsiCo is committed to be "in China and for China".

"Today, we are gratified to work with CWDF to promote further implementation of the safe drinking water program to more schools, and make our due contributions to the rural safe drinking water project and the construction of a new countryside in China."

China's 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-15) aims to resolve drinking water problems among the 298 million rural population, including teachers and students in 114,000 rural schools.

According to Tang Liandong, the principal of Housuo Primary School, before the project is completed, 800 teachers and students drank water from a reservoir of Hongwu village. The water quality posed severe hygiene risks as it didn't go through any purification or filtering before drinking. Lacking knowledge of hygiene, the students seldom developed relevant sanitation habits.

Now teachers and students can directly use and drink clean water purified by professional facilities.

"As the first Fortune 500 company to support 'Water Cellars for Mothers' project, PepsiCo has been an active player, and it has accepted our invitation to be a strategic partner this year," said CWDF Secretary-General Qin Guoying.

"Based on our achievements and experiences in the past 12 years, we have decided to upgrade this project and launched a five-year development plan including the 'Safe Drinking Water Campus Entry' program," Qin said. "We appreciate PepsiCo's contribution and expect continued cooperation with them to improve drinking water facilities, and spread safe drinking water and hygiene knowledge in rural schools."

In addition, to promote the importance of safe drinking water on a larger scale and better implement the project, PepsiCo organized volunteer activities before the inauguration of the project, inviting its associates across China to participate in the project construction.

PepsiCo Foundation and PepsiCo Greater China Region actively support a range of public welfare programs. By September, PepsiCo had invested 52 million yuan to build more than 1,500 water cellars, constructed or upgraded more than 120 centralized small water-supply projects, aided in more than 30 school safe drinking water projects, and trained more than 120,000 people in the countryside.

More than 420,000 people in 10 provinces have been benefited from contributions.

On June 30, 2011, PepsiCo CEO and Chairman Indra K. Nooyi announced a PepsiCo Foundation grant of $5 million to bring safe drinking water to 500,000 people in China by 2015 under the "Water Cellars for Mothers" project. This grant is the largest individual donation PepsiCo has ever made in China.

As of August, the first-year project had benefited nearly 360,000 people in 30 counties of eight provinces.

zhuanti@chinadaily.com.cn