After energy, it’s time for responsible water management. In the face of increasing tensions over this vital resource, ten major French retail brands – including Carrefour, Ikea, Leroy Merlin, E. Leclerc, Lidl, and Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield – are launching a collective plan called “Agenda 2030 for Water Conservation.”
Led by Perifem, the federation of commerce and distribution actors on environmental issues, this initiative aims to significantly reduce water consumption in commercial buildings. It follows the energy conservation pact signed in 2022.
A concrete and measurable action plan
The signatory brands commit to implementing four operational levers: establishing a precise usage diagnosis, repairing leaks, installing more efficient equipment, and using alternative sources such as rainwater harvesting.
This program is based on the “Water Guide,” developed in 2024 with the Seine-Normandy water agency, and on the desire to generalize remote monitoring, an automated consumption tracking and leak detection system that is still little deployed nationally.
An ongoing mobilization
Some brands are already ahead. Ikea France, for example, has been monitoring its consumption site by site since 2016 and has deployed rainwater harvesting and technical water recycling systems. At the Mousquetaires, the need to anticipate is emphasized: “Water is still available today, but we must prepare for it as we did for energy,” says Grégoire Bourdaud, president of DQRSE.
With a 14% decrease in renewable resources since 1990 in France, the sector aims to set an example. For Franck Charton, General Delegate of Perifem, this Agenda 2030 is “a structured, collective, ambitious but realistic act.” A strong signal that the distribution sector wants to send to all economic sectors.
With environnement-magazine.fr