Standards & schemes
Alliance for Water Stewardship
In brief
The AWS International Water Stewardship Standard (v3.0) certifies sites — farms, factories, bottling plants — on how they manage water, using the Alliance for Water Stewardship's five-step framework: gather data, commit and plan, implement, evaluate, and communicate. Its distinctive feature is a catchment orientation: a site cannot certify on in-fence efficiency alone but must understand and act on shared water challenges in its watershed, engaging other users and stakeholders. Certification is at three levels (Core, Gold, Platinum) reflecting the depth of achievement, performed by accredited third-party bodies, with public summaries of certified sites. It is used heavily by beverage and food companies with water-stewardship commitments. AWS certifies the site's water stewardship practice against the standard; it does not certify the organisation as a whole, nor does it by itself validate product-level or corporate-wide water claims. The certification does not automatically apply to every product, service or claim made by the certified organisation.
Conditional relationships
A relationship does not mean that the standard proves or validates every use of a claim.
Recognition & legal context
No reviewed law references are published.
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