While nearly 70 percent of our world is covered by water, only 2.5 percent of it is fresh. With so many factors contributing to atmospheric and environmental stress, less than just 1 percent of freshwater is available for use. This small but mighty fraction is responsible for the nourishment of microbes, plants, insects, and animals—and is a vital resource for our planet’s 6.8 billion people.
We all have a part to play in protecting and sustaining our freshwater ecosystem. Through Oracle Social Impact programs, including Oracle Giving and Oracle Volunteering, we’re supporting freshwater stewardship from the ground up. This means investing in nonprofits to conserve critical habitats, promoting water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) initiatives, advancing environmental education, and bolstering local communities with freshwater support.
Keeping our source water healthy
Freshwater ecosystems provide for a host of habitats, including wetlands, lakes, ponds, and streams. Groundwater supplies depend upon the health of these habitats, and habitat loss contributes to reduced water quality and lack of access for dependent communities.
In Austin, Texas, Oracle grantee, the Colorado River Alliance, is working to care for an entire system of bays, estuaries, marine life, and communities that depend upon the Texas Colorado River. That’s because it’s one of the nation’s largest watersheds, and the regional source of drinking water for 1.4 million Texans. Our FY24 grant will provide more than 12,000 hours of hands-on learning experiences for 38,000 local students and their families to learn the fundamentals of water stewardship.
Alongside supporting freshwater education in Austin, our philanthropy also helps organizations like The Nature Conservancy conserve and protect local environments, including the 4,000 acre Barton Creek Habitat Preserve. The preserve is home to several rare and endangered species, and safeguards both the Barton Creek watershed and Edwards Aquifer—another critical source of drinking water for 2 million Central Texans. Through restoration projects, invasive species removal, water monitoring, and prescribed burns, our grant is helping ensure that the local ecosystem and native species thrive. And, in FY23, Oracle Volunteers donated 300 hours to clean up trails and perform maintenance for the beautiful land of Barton Creek.
As part of our ongoing work to protect freshwater, we’ve also partnered with the Cumberland River Compact in Nashville, Tennessee to help restore Brown Creek, an urban waterway that flows into the Cumberland River. Our FY24 grant will help improve the health of the local ecosystem, and provide free-flowing fresh water, wildlife habitat, and public open space to Metro Nashville residents. This means planting trees, building rain gardens, and establishing vegetated infiltration strips along newly improved roads. Together, these measures slow down, absorb, and clean rainwater before it enters the creek. In FY23, the organization removed 1,275 pounds of trash from the watershed and planted 1,700 trees.
Healthy water means healthy communities
Addressing environmental determinants of freshwater quality is just part of the work we support. According to the CDC, universal access to safe drinking
water, adequate sanitation, and hygiene has the potential to reduce the global disease burden by 10%. Through investments in WASH services, we’re helping ensure that underserved children, families, and communities have access to clean, healthy water.
In FY24, our grant to the Swades Foundation in Maharashtra, India funded the construction of 290 toilets in the homes of underserved families. Through village water management committees and support groups, local engagement and outreach is ongoing to instill sustainable water practices. To date, Swades Foundation has helped 2,08,128 beneficiaries across rural India through impactful WASH initiatives.
In New Delhi, the MAMTA Health Institute for Mother & Child (HIMC) is helping advance sustainable health and development in underserved communities; the organization has touched four million lives across 26 states in seven countries. In FY24, Oracle’s grant improved WASH practices in 100 Delhi Government schools by delivering hygiene-based education to 11,000+ students, and helped bring access to clean drinking water for 9,000+ students. In FY25, our grant will fund the construction of rainwater harvesting structures in public schools, hygiene awareness sessions for students, and capacity-building of teachers for proper management of WASH practices.
Oracle Volunteers are a force for nature
Through Oracle Volunteering, we’re working year round—on World Water Day and every day—to keep plastics out of our waterways, partner with water conservation organizations, and regreen our local communities. In FY23, 700+ Oracle Volunteers teamed up with The Ocean Conservancy for a global cleanup project to rid our oceans and waterways of marine debris. Together, we removed 6,319 pounds of trash and litter—including plastics, foam, nets, traps, and other objects—from lakes, rivers, and beaches around the world. Other cleanups across the year helped remove more than 16,000 pieces of trash from our environment, and a total of 2,374 hours were devoted to planting greenery. These are just a few of the many ways Oracle Volunteers help conserve our water resources and care for our planet.
We can’t create new water. That means the same water we’re using today is the same water that people across history have consumed for billions of years. This precious resource is one we’ve that inherited, both from the Earth and those who came before us. Protecting it is a responsibility we owe not only to one another, but also to future generations.