Water is foundational to the beverage industry.
As the core ingredient in every beverage product, water connects beverage companies to shared watersheds, agricultural systems, manufacturing operations, communities, and long-term business resilience. It is also the reason the Beverage Industry Environmental Roundtable (BIER) first came together.
Founded in 2006, BIER began with a shared focus on water stewardship, recognizing that responsible water use and watershed health are essential to the future of the beverage sector. From the beginning, BIER’s work has centered on a simple reality: many water challenges extend beyond the reach of any single company and require collaboration across shared basins, supply chains, and stakeholders.
Industry Dialogue: Insights from Industrial Water Solutions 2026
This June, BIER Founder Paul Bowen joined industry and water leaders at the 2026 Industrial Water Solutions conference in Chicago for the panel discussion, Water in the Beverage Industry. The session explored the evolving role of water across beverage operations, stewardship, reuse, resilience, and industrial water management.
Hosted by The WateReuse Association and the Water Environment Federation, Industrial Water Solutions brought together professionals working across industrial water use, treatment, management, and regulation to identify circular water solutions that reduce waste, recover value, and support resilient communities and industries.
BIER’s participation reflects a 20-year commitment to advancing responsible water use through collaboration, technical guidance, benchmarking, water circularity solutions, and collective action across shared watersheds.
Key Resources for the Industry
Over the past two decades, BIER’s water-related work has included:
- Defining world-class water stewardship principles for the beverage sector
- Releasing the first BIER Water Benchmarking Study in 2007
- Developing in 2011, A Practical Perspective on Water Accounting in the Beverage Sector
- Launching The True Cost of Water Toolkit
- Publishing BIER’s 2021 Water Stewardship Definition
- Advancing water circularity through tools, metrics, and the 2024 Water Circularity Playbook
- Supporting collective watershed action through Charco Bendito in Jalisco, Mexico
- Continuing water, energy, and emissions benchmarking to support operational insight and industry progress
Today, BIER’s Water Stewardship technical focus continues to advance responsible water use through watershed health initiatives, water circularity solutions, improved efficiency, and collective action across shared basins.
Charco Bendito is one example of this approach in action. Launched in 2020, the collaborative watershed initiative brings together beverage companies, local stakeholders, implementation partners, and communities to support watershed health, water replenishment, and long-term resilience in the Charco Bendito sub-basin.
As water stress, climate pressures, resource demands, and sustainability expectations continue to evolve, collaboration remains essential to helping the beverage industry understand risks, identify practical solutions, and support long-term water stewardship.
Continuing the Journey
BIER’s 20-year history began with water. Today, that foundation continues to guide the coalition’s work to support responsible water use, shared learning, and collective action across the beverage sector. Other notable water stewardship resources include:
As BIER looks ahead, water stewardship continues to remain a defining part of the coalition’s work and a continued example of the value of collaboration across the beverage sector. Through shared expertise, technical guidance, benchmarking, and collective action initiatives, BIER continues to support practical, science-based approaches designed to help companies strengthen water resilience, support watershed health, and navigate evolving environmental sustainability challenges together.
The Beverage Industry Environmental Roundtable (BIER) is a technical coalition of leading global beverage companies working together to advance environmental sustainability within the beverage sector.