AB InBev Case Study

Building Local Capacity for Watershed Stewardship

In 2010, AB InBev, through its local company Ambev, launched the CYAN Movement in Brazil, a broad-based initiative designed to create awareness and promote social mobilization for water conservation in water-stressed areas. The primary objective of the project is to bring together local communities, employees, government agencies and other stakeholder to preserve and recover springs, aquifer headwater and replenishment areas.

A centerpiece of the CYAN Movement is the Basins Project, which focuses specifically on the recovery and conservation of important water basins in Brazil. The first Basins Project effort was conducted in partnership with the World Wildlife Fund to study and drive conservation efforts in the Corumbá-Paranoá Basin, which provides the water used at the company’s Brasilia brewery. Placing priority on local capacity building, the project engaged more than 8,000 people over three years in trainings and conservation and recovery activities, such as planting seedlings and monitoring the water quality of local streams. The project also developed and implemented a restoration plan, including exotic species management in headwaters areas, and planting of more than 5,700 saplings.

AB InBev is using this model on new collective action projects in Brazil and elsewhere around the world.