As public interest in the impacts of water withdrawal and wastewater discharge on ecosystems and local communities grows, companies’ water practices are subjected to greater scrutiny. Major media outlets now routinely cover water-related protests and controversies (see Box 4). For instance, the recent discovery that Starbucks’ 10,000 coffee shops worldwide have been “wasting” million liters of water daily (enough to fill an Olympic swimming pool every 83 minutes) as a result of the company’s “open tap” or “dipper well” policy, has generated a significant amount of negative media attention and public criticism. 34 Despite Starbucks’ claims that the use of.
