About the Initiative
Promoting accountability where opacity has long been the default.
Mission
H2Oversight promotes corporate environmental accountability and improves public accessibility to critical sustainability data regarding water pollution and environmental efficiency.
Target Impact
Analyze sustainability data from 100+ major multinational corporations, strengthen global environmental transparency, and contribute reports and datasets to international sustainability organizations and participating corporations.
Why Water
The quieter half of the climate conversation.
Environmental discussions often focus on carbon emissions, renewable energy, and climate targets. Water sustainability receives less attention — even though water is essential to public health, ecosystems, agriculture, manufacturing, energy production, and daily business operations.
As climate change, industrial growth, and regional scarcity place greater pressure on freshwater systems, water risk is becoming a critical ESG issue. Yet corporate water reporting remains inconsistent. Some companies disclose detailed data on withdrawal, consumption, discharge, reuse, and water-stressed regions; others report only partial figures or omit key metrics entirely.
H2Oversight evaluates corporate water sustainability practices and makes water ESG reporting easier to compare across companies and sectors. By reviewing ESG reports, we examine how companies measure water use, reduce withdrawals, manage wastewater, recycle or reuse water, and respond to water stress in vulnerable regions. Our goal is not only to highlight strong corporate water stewardship, but also to identify gaps in reporting that limit transparency and accountability.
In this report, we focus on successful water stewardship projects and four key water metrics. When companies disclose additional information, we also examine water reuse, recycling, replenishment, wastewater treatment, and watershed restoration. These metrics allow water performance to be assessed through scale, efficiency, actual consumption, and regional risk — providing a practical framework for comparing companies even when their ESG reports use different formats or levels of detail.
01
Total water withdrawal
Scale of freshwater drawn from all sources.
02
Water intensity
Efficiency per unit of economic output.
03
Net water consumption
Water removed from the local basin.
04
Stressed-region exposure
Operations sited in high-stress basins.
Our Story
From spreadsheets to international desks.
H2Oversight was established to independently review environmental and sustainability reports published annually by major publicly traded corporations, including S&P 100 giants such as Apple, Google, and Meta.
Following rigorous independent research, strategic outreach — including cold emails to representatives at the OECD and the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) — led to active interest in sharing our datasets with corporate sustainability departments.
Today, that includes sharing insights with Korean companies participating in UNGC programs, with continuing conversations across additional partner networks.
Meet the Lead Researcher
Chaehyun Han
Environmental Sustainability Researcher
Chaehyun directs the H2Oversight initiative, leveraging a deep background in biotechnology and environmental science to meticulously analyze whether corporations are meeting their publicly announced sustainability goals — particularly regarding water pollution and efficiency.
His work bridges scientific literacy with public communication, turning dense ESG disclosures into datasets that policymakers, students, and citizens can actually use.
Join the movement for transparency.
Read our Methodology