Anheuser-Busch InBev (ABInBev), A leading global brewer, and the Center for Environmental Education and Communications of the Ministry of Environmental Protection of China, jointly launched a water conservation campaign in December, soliciting university students' innovative ideas and active participation.

The event took place at China's first ultra-low energy building at the Department of Environmental Science and Engineering at Tsinghua University.

University students were called upon to share their ideas to help raise public awareness and promote water conservation practices in the community.

Contestants will be evaluated by the innovative, scientific and practical merits of their ideas. Winners will be granted final-round interview opportunities for ABInBev's global management trainee program and summer internships.

At the launch event, ABInBev submitted to the Center for Environmental Education and Communications (CEEC) its global corporate citizen report for 2008 to 2009, presenting its water-saving plans over the next three years and vowing to become the most water-efficient brewer in the world by 2012.

"We are pleased to co-sponsor this water-saving project with CEEC, to engage university students and more social groups to join in China's green efforts," said Wang Renrong, vice-president of ABInBev's Asia-Pacific operation.

Student delegates went on stage and vowed to contribute to water conservation by symbolically attaching a badge on to their hometowns on a big map.

They came from the Northeast provinces, the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, Fujian province, Guizhou province, Wuhan and Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. All these regions have serious water problems, including supply shortage, desertification, uneven rainfall distribution and pollution.

To expand the public outreach, the campaign will also invite environmental protection experts on lecture tours to universities in Beijing, Harbin, Wuhan and Guangzhou.

Jia Haifeng, associate professor at the Institute of Environmental System Analysis at Tsinghua University, debuted the lecture series by giving an overview of the current situation of water resources in China.

China has 2,800 billion cubic meters of fresh water, which accounts for six percent in the world and makes China the fourth biggest country in terms of fresh water after Brazil, Russia and Canada. But the per capita figure is only a quarter of the world average, Jia said.

Moreover, China's water resources are distributed very unevenly in space and time. North China suffers from a severe shortage. South China has abundant water but of questionable quality, Jia added.

Jia said water resources in many rivers are overdrawn, exceeding the international alert level by 130 percent. China's lakes and seas are generally polluted.

Nearly a half of urban citizens are use water of questionable quality, while 360 million people living in rural areas have no access to safe drinking water.