Driving water security in Mexico and Türkiye

The global water crisis is at a tipping point, as the world experiences more water stress, from floods to droughts. At Diageo, we’re investing in water replenishment, collective action, and efficiency, to help create a more secure future for ourselves, our operations and our communities.

This World Water Day, we are highlighting how two of our water projects in Mexico and Türkiye benefit the environment, climate, and local communities, whilst helping to ensure our own supply chains and operations are resilient and prepared for the future.

We aim to replenish more than 100% of the water we use in our tequila operations by the end of 2025. The Mexican state of Jalisco is the home of our tequila operations, but the region is experiencing severe drought and water scarcity.

At the end of 2023, we, along with our tequila brands Don Julio, Casamigos and DeLeon, announced an investment of 100 million pesos (£4.6mn) in Jalisco. This has funded six water replenishment projects, five of which have now been completed. 

For the latest project, the team set out to improve the water quality and water supply of the Santiago River, a river in west and central Mexico. The Lerma-Santiago basin is vital for our tequila operations and many communities and ecosystems in the state.

The team initiated a public private partnership at the state, regional and local level. Investing 19 million pesos, over £700,000, we contributed an energy cogeneration system (a power source) for the Ocotlán public Wastewater Treatment Plant to ensure its operation in the long term and improve water quality in the basin. Each year it operates, the cogenerator will produce up to 40% of the plant’s electricity, reduce over 900 tons of carbon dioxide emissions and reduce operational costs.

The project has also integrated a water reuse line, which provides clean wastewater for farmers to irrigate their crops. It is estimated that this line provides farmers with enough reused water to fill around 188 Olympic-sized swimming pools every year! 

This solution, using minimal energy and no chemicals to treat the water, is critical for the recovery of the Santiago river. At the same time, we can safeguard our own operations.

Our team in Türkiye plans to create the company's biggest water replenishment project in the country. 

The water irrigation project, located in the Gülnar District near the Mediterranean coast, aims to use water resources more efficiently by transferring water from the Karasu River to the main reservoir. The plan is to, in turn, help restore the productivity of the region and benefit the business through new cost efficiencies and new opportunities for growth. 

Agriculture is the region’s main livelihood, with crops including olives, grapes, tomatoes, almonds and apricots. Here, fertile lands exist but the impact of climate change is making the irrigation of crops near impossible. Kuskan is the lowest income neighbourhood in the region, with around 400 farmers facing severe drought, poor infrastructure and high irrigation costs. And roughly 600 hectares of fertile land are currently not being irrigated. 

The development project plans to improve water efficiency by storing unused rainfall water, creating efficient infrastructure for drip irrigation and using sustainable energy through solar panels. This is also designed to incentivise the younger generation to return to their family-owned land from the cities they moved to. Only around 2500 out of 6000 younger residents remained in the area, because of the lack of viable farming available.

The creation of jobs will generate income for these local farmers, improving livelihoods and instilling a sense of pride in farming the family land. And mitigating water risks remains key to ensuring sustainable growth for their businesses, and ours.

This project, a multistakeholder collaboration with our local team and local authorities, is expected to launch later this year.