Give me a break. I'll continue to get my water from the tap. Comparing apples, lamb, roses etc. is spurious logic. Conservation means no bottled water. By the way I pick up at least one of your littered, beautiful PET bottles on my running route every month. Here's an ethical decision, "Don't buy bottled water, period!"

Hi LittleCarbonFeet - Thanks for your comment. Our SVP Sustainable Growth, Thomas Mooney, answered this question/concern in a recent interview with Sustainable Life Media: "Bottled water does not replace water that comes from the tap. Instead, it replaces something else that people were buying in packaged form. If you look at beverage industry figures you'll find that the growth of bottle water essentially matches the decline in carbonated soft drink sales. That means that people are trading their Cokes or Pepsis for bottled water - a product that is not only healthier but also has a much smaller environmental footprint, in terms of both greenhouse gas emissions and packaging materials. It takes a lot more energy and packaging to keep a carbonated beverage in place. When you think about it that way, as the bottled water industry grows the overall environmental impact of the beverage industry in fact goes down. It's just a matter of putting it in context. We certainly don't argue that the environmental impact of bottled water is lower than that of tap water. But that's not what we're replacing."

OK - so this is helpful, but still, what costs are you externalizing throughout your supply chain? What message are you giving about drinking bottled water vs. municipal tap water? Bottled water is fine as long as its Fiji? What is the message in the bottle? A 7% reduction in packaging is commendable, but I can get a 100% reduction by choosing an alternative product, municipal tap water. Being less bad is not enough - it is time to be good.

Outstanding! It's great to see this focus on environmental issues.

Andrea, thanks for sharing that thought. Influencing our industry - and businesses at large - to be more environmentally conscious is something that matters a lot to us at FIJI Water. Our business itself is just a blip on the radar in the U.S. and global economy, so we'll have the greatest impact if we encourage other businesses and people to follow suit. For example, bottled water is a mere 0.33% of all U.S. municipal solid waste, and FIJI Water comprises less than 2% of the bottled water industry. So to really make a difference, we need to do more than just change ourselves.

You could become the industry leader in environmentally conscious bottled water. What an opportunity! I'd love to see alternative closures that stay attached to the bottle, examples of specific programs you are working on to increase recycling of plastics, and your contribution to fixing the infrastructure of plastic recylcling in the US (only 3.5% of plastics are recycled in the US in any way). "The majority of plastic garbage in the ocean comes from land: bottles and cups dropped in the street and washed by rain into the storm sewer, into the rivers and eventually into the ocean." http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Story?id=4528488&page=1

I just submitted a comment on how low your reported number - in error. It was a sustainability group http://www.environmentalleader.com/2008/04/09/fiji-water-releases-carbon-footprint-of-products-challenges-industry that dropped 80,000 tonnes from your estimate. I have contacted them aout the error. Thanks, Rik

Dear Fiji: I applaud your efforts in tackling this issue head-on. I have always thought Fiji water was an example of western excess and self-indulgance; Transporting water halfway around the world doesn't make a lot of sense to me, and therefore I rarely drink Fiji water. I am surprised (and skeptical) of how small your carbon footprint is - 5000 metric tons of CO2 for your whole company - that's the equivalent of the average annual emissions of about 1000 cars. Where can I go to see the math?

Yes, it's just another idiotic, liberal, feel-good program that doesn't accomplish anything except making brownie points with the Hollywood elitists who value style over substance.

Icelandic Glacial has indeed claimed it's carbon neutral. But in their carbon footprint, they didn't include emissions from distribution after the product arrives at ports in the destination countries. (Source: BusinessWeek) That can add up to a pretty big percentage of the product's lifecycle emissions. FIJI Water (apart from being carbon negative, not neutral) accounted for emissions from every activity required to get the product into your hand. We believe this is the most honest approach - when we tell a consumer that the bottle has a footprint of X g CO2eq, the consumer is going to assume we accounted for everything - they're not going to think, "Oh, of course that's the footprint just from emission sources where FIJI has equity share."

I have read that Icelandic Glacial is the only Carbon Neutral Water currently. Is that correct? Are they ahead of the game versus Fiji?

John, thanks for your comments. You offer some good food for thought about recycling. I agree that the last thing we want is a hodge podge of recycling schemes, and that we need to increase easy access to recycling - only about 50% of American households today have access to curbside recycling programs. The other key is providing incentives, as shown by dramatically higher recycling rates in states with container deposit laws. Another interesting case is Switzerland, where recycling is free but throwing away trash is costly - at least $2/bag. Their recycling rates are phenomenal - 80% for plastic PET bottles, for example. In the near term, new and expanded bottle bills at the state level appear to be the most likely way to provide incentives to recycle in the U.S. Over the long haul, however, it would be great to see a container deposit law at the federal level. One possibility is the Bottle Recycling Climate Protection Act of 2007, introduced by Massachusetts Rep. Ed Markey into the U.S. House of Representatives on Nov 15, which would provide for a 5¢ deposit on every beverage container sold in the country. (Details here: http://globalwarming.house.gov/mediacenter/pressreleases?id=0126) There's so much more to think about and discuss, this merits another blog posting soon... To answer your question about the lifecycle assessment, you can refer to http://www.fijigreen.com/OurAnnualFootprint.html. ICF International, a leading authority on GHG inventories and climate strategy, provided the third party verification for the assessment. (Their experience includes projects like the annual U.S. GHG inventory.) The last two sentences on the page provide links to the assurance report and detailed description of the methodology used for the footprint analysis.

Congrats on your progress, but still have a hard time seeing why we need a limited natural resource from Fiji in areas that have good municpal tap water. When will you start selling Fiji air too - I bet it will even have a lower carbon footprint! Seriously I welcome any sincere progress you can bring - including perhaps shifting your business strategy (and not just your PR) to take into consideration this new information. I would also caution you to jump on board with recycling "bottle bills" as its only a partial solution which often benefits the distributors more than the environment or anyone else. What we need is real waste / recycling reform so that home based curbside recycling is made easier and economical for all. If done right - it will be a win win for all and dramically improve recycling rates over current bottle bill states while also keeping the recycling caborn footprint lower. Last thing we want is a hodge podge of recycling retailer schemes for various waste streams. PS Could you post the lifecycle analysis of your assessment to see if it will stand up to independent scientific scrunity as well newly emerging FTC environmental labeling regs. Good Luck - and hope you make out better than Nike with their class action commerical speech lawsuit that was upheld by the US Supreme Court. As long as you are accurate with your claims should be fine. - The Practical Environmentalist

This is very exciting! I hope that other companies will follow the example you've set and make sustainability a priority.