However, yet again some eco-critics and opponents of the bottled water industry have hijacked the occasion of World Water Day on 22 March to peddle unfounded and unbalanced commentary, associating packaged water to environmental damage and corporate greed. Yet again, bottled water companies fought intensely to tell their side of the story.
Water Innovation has hopefully played its part to add balance to the debate by providing a free digital sampler of the magazine, with exclusive insights from industry officials on what’s being done by the industry in sustainability issues (including carbon footprint issues) and what manufacturers can communicate about CSR actions.
My thanks to Ian Hall of Zenith International, Kim Jeffery of Nestlé Waters North America and Mark Lines of csrnetwork for sharing their thoughts.
Looking at only a small number of the countless CSR activities that the ‘Big Four’ players in the bottled water industry are involved with, it should be obvious to anyone how much is being ‘poured back’ by market players.
For example, Nestlé Waters North America recently partnered with AmeriCares to deliver fresh water to thousands of people across the US for World Water Day (though Nestlé Waters around the world has had an excellent relationship by supporting Project Wet education programmes, too).
The Coca-Cola Company`s Dasani brand became the official sponsor of Expedition: Blue Planet, an around-the-world journey to raise awareness about critical water issues, to say nothing about the multitude of water-saving initiatives under way in the Coke system, and water conservation and education projects such as the tie-up between the WWF and Coca-Cola Hellenic on The Green Danube Partnership.
Meanwhile, Danone’s Volvic brand has been supporting Africa with its ‘1L = 10L’ campaign, while PepsiCo’s Ethos brand (twinned with efforts from Starbucks) is on course to donate at least $10m by the end of 2010 to help impoverished communities around the world get clean drinking water.
And that’s just the Big Four. Watch this space next week and I’ll update you on the latest charity-oriented bottled water brand making waves in the marketplace.
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