Xylem commemorates World Water Day through global water cooperation

Protecting the world’s water requires partnerships on all fronts

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mar. 22, 2013-- Xylem Inc. (NYSE: XYL), a leading global water technology company addressing the world’s most challenging water issues, is commemorating World Water Day and the United Nations’ International Year of Water Cooperation by enhancing global partnerships to provide and protect safe water resources in communities around the world.

According to the World Health Organization, more than 3.4 million people die each year from water, sanitation, and hygiene-related causes. Nearly all of these deaths, 99 percent, occur in developing nations. Xylem, through its corporate citizenship and social investment program, Xylem Watermark^SM, works with leading nonprofit organizations to provide meaningful, sustainable solutions to these global challenges.

“While water is at the center of our business, it is also one of the most urgent challenges facing the world today,” said Angela Buonocore, Xylem’s senior vice president and chief communications officer. “World Water Day, specifically this year’s theme of cooperation, presents an ideal opportunity to highlight Xylem Watermark’s ongoing focus on creating social value in collaboration with our valued partners as we work to bring safe water, sanitation and hygiene education to communities in need.”

Beginning next week, Xylem Watermark and Fundación Avina, which aims to improve and increase access to water in Latin America, will initiate the first in a series of projects in Brazil’s Semiarid, the country’s northeast region, which is particularly vulnerable to water scarcity. Teams from Avina, in conjunction with their partner, ASA (Articulation on the Semiarid), which has been working in this region since 1999, will build water cisterns and provide water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) education to community members. Xylem employee volunteers from the company’s São Paulo location will also join Avina in the field.

In the Philippines, Xylem Watermark and Planet Water, an international development organization focused on bringing clean water to the world’s most disadvantaged communities, are supporting sustainable water access through innovative technology and a hands-on educational curriculum. In 2013, the partners plan to complete 20 projects, building gravity-fed water towers that will provide daily clean water for 20,000 people. In Xylem’s Calamba location, located outside Manila, 19 employee volunteers have joined Planet Water in the field, assisting with construction and providing WASH education to local schools.

Through five strategic partnerships in more than 20 countries across five continents, Xylem Watermark has strengthened the resilience of communities by providing safe water and sanitation solutions to more than 2 million people in the five years since the program was launched. In support of Xylem’s mission to solve water, Watermark has responded to more than 15 water-related disasters with clean water and new water infrastructure. Xylem Watermark solutions are sustainable and collaborative, combining community-based efforts with regular monitoring to ensure projects meet local water needs for years to come.

About Xylem

Xylem (XYL) is a leading global water technology provider, enabling customers to transport, treat, test and efficiently use water in public utility, residential and commercial building services, industrial and agricultural settings. The company does business in more than 150 countries through a number of market-leading product brands, and its people bring broad applications expertise with a strong focus on finding local solutions to the world’s most challenging water and wastewater problems. Xylem is headquartered in White Plains, N.Y., with 2012 revenues of $3.8 billion and approximately 12,700 employees worldwide.

The name Xylem is derived from classical Greek and is the tissue that transports water in plants, highlighting the engineering efficiency of our water-centric business by linking it with the best water transportation of all – that which occurs in nature. For more information please visit us at www.xyleminc.com.

Source: Xylem Inc.

Xylem Inc.
Jennifer Jacob, +1-914-323-5745
Jennifer.jacob@xyleminc.com