PPG Industries

PPG Industries is a global manufacturer of paints, coatings, and specialty materials. Water is used as a product ingredient, for equipment cleaning, and across its expanding waterborne-coatings operations. Its water stewardship approach combines efficiency improvements at water-stressed facilities, wastewater treatment and reuse, basin-level risk monitoring, and investments that reduce pressure on municipal treatment infrastructure.

PPG's strongest 2025 water success was the wastewater distillation and reuse system at its automotive coatings facility in Wuhu, China. The plant installed two machines that separate contaminants from tank-washing wastewater and produce distilled water for reuse in later cleaning cycles. The system is expected to process more than 500 metric tons of wastewater annually. It lowers freshwater demand, reduces wastewater sent to the municipal treatment plant, and could be replicated at other manufacturing facilities.

The Wuhu project also supports PPG's broader transition toward waterborne coatings. Because these products rely more heavily on water than conventional solvent-based coatings, PPG has installed or is installing treatment infrastructure at facilities including Tianjin, Cieszyn, and San Juan del Rio. These systems allow water to be treated for reuse or improve discharge quality, helping the company expand waterborne production without proportionally increasing freshwater demand.

Operationally, water intensity at priority sites in water-stressed areas remained at 0.98 m3 per metric ton in 2025, compared with 1.36 m3 in 2019 — a 29% reduction. Total withdrawal declined from 9.96 million m3 to 7.45 million m3 over the same period, while net consumption fell from 2.18 million m3 to 1.71 million m3. PPG also monitors water scarcity through the WRI Water Risk Atlas and evaluates impacts using local environmental, regulatory, and socioeconomic conditions.

One weakness is the increase in reported water non-compliances from nine in 2024 to 17 in 2025. Although PPG describes these as generally minor permit deviations, the increase indicates that wastewater compliance requires greater attention despite improvements in efficiency and reuse.