The European Water Stewardship (EWS) is a voluntary system to assess, communicate and award sustainable water management practices. It is developed to offer competitive advantages to all responsible water managers, first of all in business, agriculture and public or private water users.

At operational level it provides a guidance tool for impact and risk assessment of the actual water use and for internal water governance that takes all aspects of sustainability into account.

Respecting the EWS requirements means, in the long run, to implement and monitor sustainable practices of water governance on operational level which contributes to:

•  Secure the natural resource and long-term availability of water as ingredient of production.
•  Provide guidance to manage and respond to water risks.
•  Raise the efficiency of water use and the economic benefit.
•  Generate public acceptance of production sites and business sectors.
•  Create competitive advantage for practical leaders of water stewardship.
•  Assist communication towards investors, for application subsidies, customers and within supply chain.
•  Give positive incentives for other operators in the sector.

EWS Benefits per sector