Even Non-Green Industries Can Offer Environmental Solutions

Posted by Chad on June 24, 2008 under Water |

Fiji water has recently received a lot of criticism regarding it’s new Fiji Green campaign, in which the company changed it’s slogan to “Every Drop is Green” while also putting up advertisements marketing their bottled water as “A Convenient Truth” and saying the “Earth Protects Fiji. And Vice Versa”. This, of course, is coming from a company that produces a product that is insurmountably more harmful to the environment than the green alternative - tap water.

But Fiji has also made a number of changes to back things up. They’ve become carbon negative, reduced their packaging, increased their recycling, and even gone on a mission to save the rainforest! In fact, Fiji is only guilty of 2% of the bottled water industry’s waste in America - an industry that is guilty of a mere 0.33% of the country’s total municipal waste. That’s not so bad, is it?

Yes it is…at least according to the environmentalists - led by Michael J. Brune, executive director of the Rainforest Action Network - that are not just voicing, but screaming, their opinion. “Bottled water is a business that is fundamentally, inherently and inalterably unconscionable,” Brune told the New York Times. “No side deals to protect forests or combat global warming can offset that reality.”

We all know the bottled water industry is a wasteful one. In fact, Triple Pundit Sustainability Engineer and MBA Pablo Päster estimates that the manufacturing and transportation process for a 1kg bottle of Fiji water takes 26.88 kg of water, 0.849 kg of fossil fuels, and 562 grams of Greenhouse Gases to produce! But the fact remains - people buy bottled water, so why not at least have companies produce it in a more efficient way?

The auto industry is also causing major harm to the environment, but you don’t see people getting mad at Toyota for releasing the Prius. In fact, most environmentalists are singing nothing but praises (including us). Of course, driving is considered more necessary than bottled water, but anybody could reduce their gas use in more ways than simply finding a more fuel efficient car. There are plenty of options: telecommuting, biking, using public transportation, carpooling, and planning our routes more efficiently.

Even the paper printing industry, one that Digitech is proud to serve, causes a lot of waste - but that doesn’t mean there aren’t opportunities to offer environmentally friendly solutions! We are excited to offer our clients in The Greater Vancouver Area and Kelowna the most environmentally friendly remanufactured printer cartridges around. Sure, they’ll still be using paper and ink like before, but at least they’ll be doing so in a responsible way!

The fact is, where there is demand for a product there will also be supply! And, in the case of bottled water, there is a lot of demand! Unfortunately, throughout Fiji’s attempts to reconstruct their image - people are continuing to compare the wastes of bottled water versus tap water, or possibly even brand 1 versus brand 2, 3, and 4.

Fiji is a long distance from North America and, because of this, they do cause a lot of waste. But it would be unreasonable to expect them to shut their doors when they have millions of paying customers around the world. In fact, it would be fundamentally unconscionable to expect such a thing when we continue to wear clothing made in Mexico, China, India, and beyond - not to mention the extreme distances our tech devices - mp3 players, phones, computers, printers, televisions, etc - travel.

As Jensen, a TreeHugger reader commented, “you can complain indignantly about how awful bottled water is ’til you’re blue in the face, but the fact that some companies are trying to reduce the ecological footprint of their bottled water is a good thing as long as the bottled water industry is going to stick around.”

Until consumers do something about the problems that exist within the bottled water industry, there is no reason for Fiji to ever close up shop. The fact they’re doing their part to decrease their environmental footprint is a great thing by itself. Instead of condemning them for their flaws, we should be praising them for their desire to change.

If every company would make small steps towards reducing their carbon footprint, much like Fiji has done, we would be living in a much more sustainable world. As it stands, we need to stop pointing fingers at others and start looking at ourselves.