I only buy bottled water when I need to.#
November 3, 2007
Saturday Interview
A Spotlight on the Green Side of Bottled WaterBy CLAUDIA H. DEUTSCH
LAST summer, environmentalists took on the bottled water industry. On their Web sites and in their press releases, many environmental groups pointed to bottled water as a prime example of an unnecessary product that uses scarce resources and adds more plastic to overtaxed landfills.
The industry’s growth did slow down. But most industry experts and even some environmentalists concede that the outcry was not the reason. Instead, it was a combination of higher prices, relatively cool weather and, perhaps most important, the maturity of the industry.
“We weren’t even selling refreshment-size bottles of water until 1989, said Kim E. Jeffery, chief executive of Nestlé Waters, which sells Poland Spring, Perrier and five other branded waters. “But the per-capita increase in bottled water use is growing, and will continue to grow.
In a recent conversation, Mr. Jeffery maintained that bottled water would continue to sell briskly no matter how much criticism came its way. Following are excerpts from that conversation:
Q. Tap water is not only more environmentally friendly than bottled water, but it is also less expensive. Won’t that combination eventually woo consumers back to their faucets?
A. Bottled water wooed people away from soda and sports drinks, not taps. About 70 percent of the beverages people drink come in packages. All our research shows that if bottled water weren’t available, people would buy Gatorade, or fruit juice, or other sugared or diet beverages. Some 16 percent say they would drink tap water but you can’t go into a deli and ask for a bottle of tap water.
And you may pay $4 for a bottle of water at Fenway Park, but it costs you about 15 cents a bottle when you buy a case at the market. It’s still a lot cheaper than other convenience drinks. And, considering the obesity epidemic, a lot healthier.
Q. Healthier? But there have been scares over the years about contamination. That’s true of tap water, too but those problems can be solved with filter systems.
A. Sure, there have been isolated incidents but those were problems with contamination that was introduced at the store, not at the point of manufacture. Our whole industry adheres to a formal set of good manufacturing practices. Infant formula is the only other product regulated by the Food and Drug Administration that can make that claim.
Q. Still, environmentalists are trying to make people feel uncool, even guilty, about carrying around bottles of water. Don’t you fear a backlash?
A. Not at all. We’re aware of the heightened noise level, and ever since July, we’ve been doing telephone and Internet surveys every few weeks, checking on whether people’s perception of our industry is changing.
The research consistently shows that people are aware of the issues surrounding bottled water but they are not going back to sugared drinks, and they will not rely on their taps.
Q. But they may be buying bottled water despite its environmental impact. You’ve maintained that bottled water actually helps the environment. Isn’t that somewhat counterintuitive?
A. We’re not perfect. The entire consumer products industry is behind the curve on recycling, for example.
But we rely on a sustainable source of water, so we’ve always been conscious of conserving the springs and the land around them. When we find a new spring, we build a plant nearby. We are constantly reducing the distance our product must travel to customers. It would be rare for product to travel more than 250 miles from source to store.
Q. None of that addresses the issue of bottles. Can you really justify using all that plastic?
A. We use less packaging than sodas or other convenience beverages. Nestlé Waters is rolling out Ecoshape, a 12.5 gram plastic bottle that holds half a liter of water. It’s about 15 percent lighter than our current bottles, and we use 10 to 15 percent less energy to make it. By year end, all our brands will use it.
Think of it a half-liter bottle of Poland Spring will use less than half an ounce of plastic. The bottles for carbonated beverages are twice as heavy, and Gatorade bottles are three times as heavy.
Q. You make Nestlé Waters and its industry sound like a group of tree huggers. If that is so, why do you think so many environmentalists are trying to put you out of business?
A. They are trying to frame this as a fight between bottled water and tap water. And what they really want is to ensure the quality of municipal water supplies. Many of them are afraid that the easy availability of bottled water might take the spotlight off the need to manage the municipal infrastructure better.
Q. So why aren’t you fighting back? I haven’t seen advertising that extols the environmental benefits of bottled water.
A. I’ll happily answer questions like the ones you are asking now. And we have started airing commercials about our lightweight package because we see it as a point of differentiation for us.
But like any company, we have finite resources. Look, we’ve got the lightest-weight packaging containing the healthiest product. I want to spend our advertising dollars talking about the attributes of my product and of my company. I don’t want to spend them on some negative conversation that some other group has decided to start.
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/03/business/03interview.html# # #
I am a big fan of garlic. Learned to use it for many things. 
