Presenting Sponsor: Vestergaard Frandsen

Vestergaard Frandsen (VF) is the presenting sponsor for the International Center for Research on Women's (ICRW) Passports to Progress event, "The Bottom Line: How Big Business Is Empowering Women and Girls," at the National Press Club in Washington DC on March 7, 2012. At the event, Tara Ann Lundy, Concept Development Manager for Vestergaard Frandsen, will give a special presentation on its LifeStraw® “Carbon For Water™” campaign.

Vestergaard Frandsen is a European-based company specializing in disease control products.VF operates under its own unique Humanitarian Entrepreneurship business model. This "profit for a purpose" approach has turned corporate social responsibility into its core business of creating life-saving products for the most vulnerable.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) call for a reduction of the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water by half between 1990 and 2015. Yet, an estimated 884 million people in the world, 37% of whom live in Sub-Saharan Africa, still use unimproved sources of drinking water

Water filters have been shown to be the most effective interventions amongst all point-of-use water treatment methods for reducing diarrheal diseases.

LifeStraw® and LifeStraw® Family are both point-of-use water interventions – truly unique offerings from Vestergaard Frandsen that address the concern for affordably obtaining safe drinking water at home and outside. These complementary safe water tools have the potential to accelerate progress towards the MDG target of providing access to safe drinking water, which would yield health and economic benefits; thus contributing to the achievement of other MDGs like poverty reduction, childhood survival, school attendance, gender equality and environment sustainability.

LifeStraw's® “Carbon For Water™” campaign uses carbon financing to provide sustainable access to safe drinking water. More than four million people in Western Province, Kenya now have access to safe and clean drinking water purified up to EPA standards through the LifeStraw® Family.

Learn more at www.carbonforwater.com