Amazon, Gap Inc., Starbucks and water solutions company Ecolab have partnered with Matt Damon’s Water.org nonprofit to launch Get Blue, a global initiative designed to improve access to safe water and sanitation. The program will work to align business leaders, consumer engagement and capital to bring clean water and sanitation access to communities around the world.

Get Blue is designed to be a longterm platform that enables companies across consumer and business-to-business sectors to treat water as a core operating and market issue. The idea is to recognize access to clean water as a growing business imperative, giving enterprises a way to collaborate and tap into customer participation—such as buying Get Blue-branded products—to create sustained investments in water access.

“Solving the global water crisis is possible if the business community comes together and focuses on measurable change,” said Gary White, CEO and co-founder of Water.org. “Water sits at the center of opportunity in the global economy. Get Blue gives companies a way to lead on an issue their industries depend on, and to help scale solutions that are already reaching millions of people who need them. This is the kind of leadership required to end the water crisis within our lifetimes.”

White and Damon founded Water.org in 2009 with a mission to provide greater access to safe water and sanitation around the globe. Through the organization’s WaterCredit program, families use small, affordable loans to access safe water and sanitation at home. To date, Water.org has reached 85 million people with lasting water and sanitation access. The organization has a goal of upping that reach to 200 million people by 2030.

The Get Blue campaign—which was introduced this week during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland—is designed to help Water.org reach that goal by collecting a portion of the proceeds from partner companies’ sales of branded products. Gap, Amazon, Starbucks and Ecolab are currently developing those activations across fashion, food and beverage and technology.

“At Gap Inc., we bridge gaps to create a better world—and the gap between people who lack access to water, let alone clean water, is far too big. We believe everyone should have access to clean water,” said Richard Dickson, president and CEO of Gap Inc. “Through the launch of Get Blue, we’re uniting some of the world’s most influential brands behind a shared mission. As an industry, we have both an opportunity and a responsibility to lead—using our scale, creativity, and influence to turn awareness into action. By coming together, we can help make safe water accessible to every person on the planet and demonstrate what’s possible when our industry steps up as a force for good.”

Along with the Get Blue tie-in, each of the founding partner companies also has pledged to prioritize water as an issue that is important to their business, their stakeholders and their communities.

“The water crisis requires sustained, meaningful action, and Get Blue is an example of what the private sector can do to help raise awareness and work together to drive solutions and impact,” said Kara Hurst, chief sustainability officer, Amazon. “This approach builds on Amazon’s aim to be a responsible water steward in communities—and water stressed regions—where it operates, as it works to reduce water use across its operations through investment, innovation and implementation. Globally, Amazon has announced more than 40 water replenishment projects that are expected to return upwards of 18 billion liters of water annually, once complete. As part of that work, Amazon set a goal to return more water to communities than it uses across its data centers by 2030, and is already more than halfway to meeting that goal—and the company set a goal to return more water than it uses across its entire operations in India by 2027.” 

Water.org estimates that 2.1 billion people, or nearly one in four worldwide, lack access to safe water, while 3.4 billion live without safe sanitation. The organization said that having access to those two things at home creates improved health, education, income and opportunity.

Water.org said it is seeking additional brand partners to join the Get Blue program, and Damon believes participants will be able to leverage their market power to enact positive change.

“Get Blue is already starting to bring together a community that recognizes everyone’s individual roles in helping end the global water crisis,” he said. “When brands especially use their influence this way, progress proliferates—and that’s exactly what this movement is designed to do.”