3p Contributor: Matthew Savage
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Is Bottled Water a Dead Man Walking?
At the 2009 Net Impact Conference, Adam Werbach called Fiji Water a “Dead Man Walking,” stating that the company has greenwashed its brand and that it was only a matter of time before its actions caught up with the company (read a NY times article on Fiji here). While Werbach was referring to the way that Fiji Water was portraying its brand, he also broadly implied that the business of shipping water around the world is simply unsustainable. This brought up a lot of questions about the “health” of the bottled water industry in general.
The environmental arguments against bottled water are gaining more traction, and people are starting to question whether bottled water is really worth it, financially and environmentally. Recent sales reflect a drop in consumer demand for bottled water — Nestlé SA, the world’s largest food and beverage group, reported a three percent drop in its first-half profit last August, according to MarketWatch. In past years, Nestlé was growing in the double digits, as were most bottled water companies.
Overall, the bottled water industry in the United States has expanded at a phenomenal rate, though the market dipped slightly last year. According to data from Beverage Marketing, a U.S.-based data and consulting firm, retail sales of single-serving plastic bottles increased from 1.4 billion gallons in 2000 to 5.2 billion gallons last year, lifting their share of total bottled water volume from 29 percent to more than 60 percent. And, over the past decade, per-capita consumption of bottled water in the U.S. has more than doubled to about 200 bottles per year, per person, according to MarketWatch.
How are We Going to Solve the Water (and Sanitation) Crisis?
Here’s the deal. 1 billion people lack access to clean water. 2.5 billion people lack access to adequate sanitation. Every year 3 to 5 million people die from water-related diseases.
Water will surely be the biggest issue of our time, globally. So, what are the strategies being used to bring clean water and sanitation to the poor? I attended some water-related sessions at the 2009 Net Impact Conference last weekend, investigating what some organizations are doing in Latin America, Asia and Africa.
Three of the main themes that I identified were: empowerment, ownership and self-reliance. Bringing clean water solutions to the developing world requires systems that help empower the local communities – helping mobilize the women and creating entrepreneurs – as well as creating a solution that communities feel they own; solutions must fit into the culture. Self-reliance refers to the fact that NGO’s historically have brought solutions to communities without a long-term plan in place for maintenance and within 3 to 5 years the systems are in disrepair or abandoned.
The “Impact” of the 2009 Net Impact Conference: Suggested Improvements
This year’s Net Impact Conference was a big success. It was an incredible gathering of many current and future leaders in the sustainability field. That’s why the following bones that I have to pick are important to address – if we can’t get it right, who will? (I love you Cornell and Net Impact ;)
- Carbon footprint of the conference: Cornell University in upstate New York is a beautiful location. However, it’s also very remote. To get there from most locations in the U.S. requires at least one connection and driving. The carbon emissions from flights are enormous and most of this is in take-off and landing. Cornell, we love you, but could we have future conferences in hub-ier cities?
- Waste at the conference: There were some instances of easy-to-interpret bins for compost, recycling and regular trash (for me, the ones that work are those that you can easily identify without crouching down or having to decipher which one is which). Color, shape and large type are all key to being able to do the right thing whilst having a conversation with your friend or colleague. Some were the right kind, but many of them were strange over-sized paper bags that all looked the same and didn’t stand up straight (one fell over during a social event, covering a woman’s leg in melted Ben & Jerry’s!). A waste strategy can’t have inconsistencies like these, because once it gets out of hand, it’s all mixed up. Net Impact, can we get this right next time?
- Posterity: It is a crime not to record such a gathering of great minds and thinkers. There were more than 120 sessions with some great insights and it was all lost to the halls of Cornell (except the keynotes)! I say that we should be “open source” so that this knowledge gets shared as much as possible. Plus, it might have given an option to those who didn’t want to commit to the financial or environmental costs of the conference. This is easy; every iPhone has a voice recorder if video is not possible.
Adam Werbach’s Strategies for Sustainability
Photo by Andrew Paytner
When Adam Werbach talks, people listen. And for good reason – his career track has been explosive, from being elected the youngest-ever President of the Sierra Club at age 23 to his more recent work with Walmart attempting to engage all 2 million or their Associates. Currently, he is the CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi S, the sustainability arm of Saatchi & Saatchi.
I listened to him speak today at the 2009 Net Impact Conference where he gave a fascinating set of guidelines and strategies for corporations and anyone interested in sustainability, loosely based on his new book, Strategy for Sustainability.
Adam holds the view that sustainability has not even begun yet (well, maybe just begun) and asserts that if we look back in history, we will call 2007 and 2008 perhaps the beginning of a new relationship forming between large corporations and their customers.
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