Procter & Gamble: Safe Water Through a Powder

Procter & Gamble's Children's Safe Drinking Water program - the signature program for P&G's Live, Learn and Thrive™ corporate cause - helps address this critical issue by the use of simple, household-level water treatment technology: PUR™ Purifier of Water.

P&G has committed to long-term, not-for-profit provision of PUR in the developing world in an effort to reduce illness and death, particularly in children. The Children's Safe Drinking Water program provides PUR through sustained social markets and for emergency relief.

A 4-gram packet of PUR treats 10 liters of water. PUR effectively kills bacteria and viruses and removes parasites and solid materials. Five clinical studies show that use of PUR can reduce diarrheal illness in children by an average of 50%.

Working with essential and wide-ranging partners, Children's Safe Drinking Water has provided PUR for emergency relief in nearly every major natural disaster in the last three years, including the Southeast Asia tsunami, hurricanes in the Caribbean , floods in the Philippines and Bangladesh , and earthquakes in Pakistan and Indonesia. Most recently, PUR has been provided to victims of flooding and cholera outbreaks in Ethiopia and Kenya .

In collaboration with Population Services International (PSI), the US and UK governments, and others, Children's Safe Drinking Water has established social markets in Kenya, Pakistan, Uganda, Malawi, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, Botswana, Indonesia, Haiti, Dominican Republic, and Nigeria.

A key component of these social markets is education about the importance of safe drinking water to bring about long-term behavior change. Educational efforts are currently being focused on local school programs and health clinics.

The two-pronged approach of P&G's Children's Safe Drinking Water program—distribution of PUR in social markets and for emergency relief—has been effective to date. In the last four years, Children's Safe Drinking Water has provided more than 750 million liters of safe drinking water and helped avert more than 30 million days of diarrhea.

• Case study ( 138 kb)

Author WBCSD Publication Date 18 Jan 2008 Document Type Case studies Issue/Topic Business Role/CSR Development Water Company The Procter & Gamble Company Source WBCSD Include In RSS WBCSD News & Updates Sustainable Development Case Studies		138 kb