3M

3M is an American-based industrial materials and technology company that produces products for use in the industrial, safety, electronic, transportation, and consumer markets. Since 3M has manufacturing locations around the world that use water for sanitation, processing, heating, cooling, and remediation, water-related issues are relevant to both the company's operational efficiency and local water-resilient communities. The clearest example of 3M's water sustainability success is the combination of its manufacturing water efficiency, risk-based site screening, and local water-resilience projects.

3M uses the WRI Aqueduct 4.0 tool to assess more than 100 locations for water risk, finding that only 10, representing 1.2% of total water use, are in locations with high or extremely high water stress. This suggests that 3M's exposure to water-stressed operations is relatively low, but there is room for improvement. 3M has also set and delivered on a goal to reduce its water intensity, with a 25.4% reduction in 2019 compared to 2019. In 2025, total water use was only slightly lower than the previous year, down to 29.7 million cubic meters from 31.3 million in 2024, contributing to overall operational efficiency in water use. Several other highlights include the fact that water use data is transparent and easy to interpret, and 3M has adopted the WRI Aqueduct 4.0 tool for risk analysis at a variety of locations; it is a leading example of public commitment and transparency.

A stronger example of a site-level achievement is the project in Shirur, India, where 3M's 2024 pilot project in collaboration with Water For People India Trust was carried out in a drought-affected area, focusing on watershed-based interventions, rainwater harvesting, and the capacity building of local water management committees. Rainwater was not only being stored and utilized in the months before the summer monsoon season, but was also helping local farmers and agriculture, in addition to reaching 1,100 households and more than 4,800 residents of Kendur village—an outcome that more clearly builds local water resilience and community resilience. According to a 3M report, the company has also installed advanced water treatment technologies at its largest water-consuming sites; created a process for treating process water and groundwater to remove residual PFAS from its historic PFAS manufacturing operations; and built an independent cooling tower at its Woodlands, Singapore site that reduces water blowdown and removes chemical dosing.

The main weakness of 3M's water profile is that while the 3M Ranjangaon project alone reports the number of households and people reached, rather than the actual volume of rainwater captured, the 3M Woodlands cooling tower is not accompanied by a specific water savings figure. There is good disclosure of water use and vulnerability to water stress, but reporting would benefit from information on company-wide water withdrawals, discharges, reuse, and savings from projects.