Water stewardship and corporate sustainability: a case study of reputation management in the food and drinks industry

• Author: Daphne Comfort,Peter Jones,David Hillier
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1534
• Date: 01 February 2015
• Published date: 01 February 2015

■Research Note

Water stewardship and corporate

sustainability: a case study of

reputation management in the

food and drinks industry

Peter Jones

1

*, David Hillier

2

and Daphne Comfort

1

1

Business School, University of Gloucestershire, Gloucestershire, UK

2

Centre for Police Sciences, University of South Wales, Pontypridd, UK

The aim of this paper is to provide an exploratory review of the extent to which some of the leading companies in the

food and drinks industry are publicly addressing water stewardship as part of their corporate sustainability strate-

gies. The paper begins with an introductory outline of the growing importance of water stewardship and a brief dis-

cussion of corporate sustainability. The paper drawsits empirical material from the most recent information on water

stewardship posted by the leading companies in the food and drinks industry’s corporate websites. The findings

reveal that the vast majority of the selected companies address a number of elements concerning water stewardship

as part of their more general approach to corporate sustainability. However, corporate commitments to water stew-

ardship can be interpreted as being driven as much by business imperatives as by any specific concerns for environ-

mental sustainability or a genuine desire to maintain the viability and integrity of natural ecosystems. More critically,

the authors suggest that the selected companies’commitments to water stewardship are framed within existing busi-

ness models focused on technological improvements in eco-efficiency and continuing economic growth. The paper

provides an accessible review of the water stewardship issues being pursued by the leading players in the food

and drinks industry, and as such, it will interest academics, students, political commentators and business managers

interested in water stewardship and corporate sustainability. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

INTRODUCTION

Reputation is a vitally important, yet intangible,

asset that provides companies with competitive

advantage in the marketplace. De Castro, Lopez

and Saez (2006), for example, argue that ‘corporate

reputation is the process of the social legitimization

of the firm’and that it can be understood as ‘the

collective representation of actions and outcomes of

the past and present of the organisation,that describe

its capabilityto obtain valuable outcomesfor different

stakeholders’. Fombrun and Van Riel (1997) suggest

that ‘reputations derive from multiple, but related

images of firms among all of a firm’s stakeholders,

and inform about their overall attractiveness to em-

ployees, consumers, investors and local communi-

ties’. More recently, while Doorley and Garcia

(2011) accept this definition, they suggest that per-

formance, behaviour and communication are all

‘critical components of reputation’. In many ways,

reporting on corporate sustainability, which cap-

tures all three of these components, is increasingly

seen to be crucial in building a company’s reputation

within the marketplace.

In identifying ‘six growing trends in corporate sus-

tainability’,Ernst & Young and GreenBiz(2012) argue

the growing awareness that ‘corporate sustainability

*Correspondence to: Peter Jones, Business School, University of

Gloucestershire, The Park, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, GL50

2RH, UK.

E-mail: pjones2@glos.ac.uk

Journal of Public Affairs

Volume 15 Number 1 pp 116–126 (2015)

Published online 25 June 2014 in Wiley Online Library

(www.wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/pa.1534

Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.