If you have been into a Starbucks in the past few weeks, you’ve most likely come across those sexy clear and blue bottles of water called Ethos. A $1.80 botle of water—what gives? Here’s their claim:

“Founded in 2002, Ethos™ Water takes a unique approach to doing business — it is the bottled water that helps children around the world get clean water. It’s a powerfully simple concept…Water for Water.

Every time you purchase a bottle of Ethos water we will contribute 5 cents toward our target goal of raising at least $10 million over five years. By transforming every purchase into an opportunity, we can directly engage a growing community to help solve the world water crisis.”

I posted about The Evils of Bottled Water earlier, so I won’t get into the irony of a bottled water company claiming to help the “world get clean water.” Instead, I’ll simply throw a question out there for the individuals that are snatching this bottle up in droves, feeling incredibly fulfilled that 5 of the 180 cents they just plopped down, is going to do something to help the world’s children stay hydrated… Why not go to the grocery store, buy the 1 liter bottle of [enter brand name here] water for 99¢, and donate the other 81¢ to water crisis charities? Or, better yet, why not filter your tap water (or not) and drink it for free? That would leave you with a pretty big chunk of change to help make the world a better place.

5¢ out of $1.80? Give me a break.

TAGS: Ethos | Starbucks | Water | Ethics | Social Enterprise

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 2nd, 2005 at 12:02 pm and is filed under Business Ethics, Business Strategy, Social Enterprise. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.