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Faculty of Arts
University of Alberta

Bottled water sales to ease world water woes

Aug 25, 2005

by Iris Tse

Bottled water sales to ease world water woes

Kori Chilibeck
To those who live in developed countries, clean drinking water is as simple as twisting a tap or bending over a water fountain. To those who live in developing countries, however, clean water is a luxury item that's often hard to come by.

"We don't realize how important just a glass of water can be. A lot more people have died from water-related diseases and hunger-related diseases than other diseases such as AIDS and tuberculosis," said Kori Chilibeck, a political science student at the University of Alberta. "Something as simple as cholera is not lethal in North America because clean water is available for us to rehydrate ourselves. But cholera is deadly in developing countries.

"We just take things like that for granted."

With this in mind, Chilibeck was determined to find ways to provide drinking water to parched people all over the world. After much deliberation, he settled on the idea of bringing clean drinking water to Third World countries by selling bottled water in developed countries.

"I did some research and realized that there really is no Canadian bottled water company that sells water from coast to coast. And we thought that since Canada has such great water, maybe we can pioneer ourselves and sell bottled water," said Chilibeck. "Instead of paying huge dividends to our shareholders, like Coca Cola or Pepsi, we'll just give the money to the United Nations to be used specifically in water aid programs."

Chilibeck, a self-professed travel enthusiast, first hatched his idea while he was traveling in Nepal near the base of Mount Everest , where he witnessed a man hauling flats of Coke to a tourist village uphill.

"This old man passed by me and he had this big basket on his back. He wasn't wearing shoes, he was wearing a light T-shirt and it was fairly cold out and he was walking on a rocky terrain. And when I looked into his basket, all I saw was flats of Coke," he said. "We sat down and talked through a translator and he said that he was paid per kilogram per kilometre to carry this Coke.

"And we just thought, wow, these big companies are literally making money off the backs of this poor guy who was paid next to nothing to carry Coke in order to support his nine kids. He didn't work directly for Coke, but still, the sight really hit home. This poor guy can't even afford to drink this beverage," said Chilibeck.

Originally created as a fundraising project for the United Nations, Chilibeck's concept ballooned into an ongoing long-term endeavour in the form of Earth Water International. The net profit Earth Water International receives will be donated to the United Nations Refugee Agency to be used towards water programs in developing countries. Because of its socially conscious goal, Earth Water is the first food-and-beverage product to sport the United Nations logo. The company's aim is to donate 15 - 19 cents from each bottle towards the UN.

"The reason we want to go with 15 - 19 cents is because that's approximately what it cost to provide clean fresh water to a child for a day," said Chilibeck. "This is no different than any other bottled water that Coke or Pepsi sells. But the more we sell, the more we can give back to the UN."

Earth Water is steadily gaining ground in Canada, where the bottled water is found in large chain supermarkets and cafés. Though the company is still in its infancy, Chilibeck said it has already broken even and will be sending $25,000 to the UN this fall, during the company's one-year anniversary. In fact, the response is so overwhelmingly positive that Chilibeck is in talks to export the water to the United States and Europe.

"We're planning right now to launch Earth Water in the Netherlands in March and they will distribute it to Netherlands, Belgium and Germany," said Chilibeck.

Though Earth Water may soon receive Dutch and German labels, don't expect to see Earth Water on the U of A campus anytime soon. The school's exclusivity deal with Coke meant that any competitors with Coke, including Earth Water, cannot be sold on campus. In fact, this sort of exclusivity deal, which can be found in many universities, high schools and cities, presents one of the biggest hurdles for Earth Water to overcome.

"We are trying our best to raise awareness and fortunately, the water is available in many places off-campus and we know that students are going out to buy it," said Chilibeck. "The campus population is my audience. They're the most socially conscious and active group of people we have."

Chilibeck hopes to see his bottled water available in every developed country in the world.

"We haven't reinvented water. The water is just water. But it's definitely the idea behind the water that we're selling."

This article originally appeared in the University of Alberta's ExpressNews

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