The Debate Over Bottled Water Charity

Millions of people around the world don’t have access to safe water. Women and children walk miles each day to collect scarce amounts of dirty water for their families to survive on, and often must spend the rest of their time caring for those who become sick from the contamination. Fortunately, there are hundreds of water charities dedicated to the cause of clean water, sanitation and hygiene in underdeveloped countries. Many of them take donations online, and organize events in order to raise awareness and money to go toward solving this crisis. Lately, however, there has been a trend toward mixing socially conscious charitable efforts with profitable business. For example:

TOMS Shoes: For every pair of shoes you buy, the company will send a pair to a child in need.

Bodoblankets.com: For every blanket you buy, they donate one.

Boxed Water: Not only does this company provide a more eco-friendly alternative to plastic bottled water; they donate 10 percent of their profit to water relief foundations.

The last one got me thinking about bottled water charities. Several of these exist. One Water, for example, donates all of its profits to PlayPumps® in Africa – a water filtration technology implemented by Water for People and the Case Foundation. While I’m all for sustainable efforts and using your business to contribute to the overall good, something about the idea of selling bottled water in order to raise money for those who have no access to clean water just seems a little crazy to me. Almost as nonsensical as what Fiji Water has been accused of on multiple accounts: taking good water away from the poor people in Fiji in order to market it to the rich people in America. Actually, even those who aren’t so rich have bought into Fiji’s marketing message, enough to purchase the water.

First off, bottled water is bad for the environment. All of that plastic waste pollutes our landfills, as most of it is not actually recycled. It seems pointless to take profits from a business that is helping to destroy the environment, and contribute them toward something good. In the process of trying to solve one problem, you’re creating another.

Boxed Water IS better. And I suppose that a 10 percent donation of profit from them is better than none. But even better than that is filtered tap water. Nonprofit organizations like Clean Water for Haiti, or Water is Life, dedicate themselves to providing water filtration technology to those in developing countries – which will go a lot farther than money in the hands of corrupt politicians, and a few cases of bottled water.

I know “eco-snobbery sucks,” and I’m not saying that all of these types of efforts are bad. After all, most people are more willing to give if they’ll get something in return for it. However, giving to get is not the true definition of charity, so businesses that do this are taking away from what it really means. Moreover some businesses will simply use the “charity” message as part of a marketing scheme that appeals to a wider range of consumers. Their motivations are then subject to scrutiny…

The debate over charitable business has been popular among online writers. The BBC recently published an article quoting several points of view: Professor Aneel Karnani, from the University of Michigan Ross School of Business, claims that “Companies should do well; citizens should do good.” And, “there should be a clear split between a real business and a philanthropic organization.” Part of me agrees with this. But another part of me thinks that, if done right, business mixed with charity can be a really good thing. I guess I’m still not sure exactly where I stand on this issue. I do think that businesses that begin as complete for-profit efforts, and then later decide to throw philanthropy into the mix for the sole purpose of raising their image, and thus, their profits, are distinguishable from those that found and run their business for charitable efforts, while still making a reasonable profit, meanwhile. Distinguishable, but not necessarily worse or better. Any business person would argue that the former is just “good business practice,” and you can’t blame a company for keeping up with what’s trendy (especially if it’s for the common good) in order to reach a wider audience. I still have issues with using an environmentally unfriendly product like bottled water to do so, however. That’s one industry that might want to find a different approach.

Thoughts?

Selwa

Selwa Lukoskie is a content writer for Filters Fast, an online retailer of air and water filtration products. She specializes in topics related to clean air, clean water, filtration, water privatization, sustainability and related environmental issues. If you liked this post, please check out more of her writing in her company blog: The Filtered Files. Also, feel free to follow Filters Fast on Facebook and twitter (@FiltersFast).