Buy Ethos and Help the Children
While waiting for a latte in a local Starbuck Coffee Shop the other day I was pleasantly surprised to see a poster with a photo of a Bangladeshi rural woman pumping water from a tube well. The poster was part of the campaign started by the company Ethos that produces bottled water. What makes it different from any other bottle water company is this; a portion of their profit goes to help the children around the world. By transforming every purchase into an opportunity, they directly engage a growing community to help solve the world water crisis.
The founder Peter Thum conceived the idea of Ethos after observing first hand the suffering of impoverished children in South Africa, whose life prospects were diminished due to the lack of safe drinking water.
Ethos was acquired by the Starbucks Coffee Company in 2005 and as part of Starbuck’s long standing dedication to Corporate Social Responsibility, Starbucks and Ethos are committed to raising awareness of the World Water Crisis and empowering their consumers to make a difference with every purchase of Ethos. 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.
Among the countries who are being benefited from this program who tops the list? Yes. Bangladesh. Currently in partnership with wateraid (www.wateraid.com) the Ethos is working to provide relief to the populations of Thakurgaon Upazilla and Bazitpur in Kishoregonj Upazilla in the north of Bangladesh. Of the residents 21,300 will receive clean water; 36,000 residents will benefit from sanitation systems; 100,000 residents will participate in hygiene education programs. It clearly shows that there is huge potential for corporate sponsored social development projects. [If only the local mega companies in BD will think along that line…....]
So remember, if you need to buy a bottle of water, and Ethos is available, please go for it.
BUY ETHOS AND SAVE THE CHILDREN.
November 6th, 2006 at 12:08 am
Zafa, you write about “..Starbuck’s long standing dedication to Corporate Social Responsibility..”
I think it bodes well not to uncritically repeat the propaganda of corporates like Starbucks. Their committment has recently been called into question by Oxfam. Please see here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6086330.stm
Oxfam got into bed with Starbucks in 2004 but soon found out about Starbucks’ so-called CSR.
And as far as water itself is concerned, Howard Schultz (chairman of Starbucks the last time I looked) is a vociferous zionist and would have no problems whatsoever in denying Palestinian farmers irrigation water and/or drinking water judging by his irresponsible forays into the world of zionist politics.
November 6th, 2006 at 12:30 am
You know something funny Shafiur bhai, I had a feeling you were going to slam me with these facts.
Yes, the line about Starbuck’s longstanding CSR came from ‘them’. And oh yes, Schultz’s pro Israeli propaganda is well known. I was one of those who gave up Sturbuck’s coffee on protest (but then I went back when he tried to make ammends…oh well…you got KFC…I got my skimmed latte…).
My point is Ethos and Starbuck together are doing something that nobody else is doing. These prog not only helps BD but many poor sub-Saharan African countries. If more and more children in BD get clean water and proper sanitation, I don’t give a hoot if their CEO’s religeous sentiment. I don’t care who they are bedding with (in corporate terms).
The capitalists who argue with this line “I worked hard, It’s my money, I’ll do whatever I want”…To them I want to say..”OK, have fun in life, but…how about giving back to society a little on the side?…”
All businesses are there for profits. Noone starts a business to not make any profit . We may not agree with their idelogy. But I still like it when they give out a little. I hope the highly successful businesses in BD will more and more lean this way.
Waiting for the second round from you….
November 6th, 2006 at 4:58 am
I am not the pugilist you think I am. I was merely pointing out that one should be careful not to digest corporate propaganda or reproduce it as if its god’s truth . And the experience of Oxfam points to a suspect ethos…if you forgive the pun. Oxfam’s experience should alert others wishing to engage in partnerships with Starbucks. People get into partnerships with such companies because of their resources. And then they find out….
The point about Palestine was again to underline that their so-called CSR is questionable in certain contexts at least.
I did not say anything about Ethos as I know nothing about them save what you have alluded to above. And the point here is you have got the info about Ethos from Starbucks - hardly an independent source - and I could not easily find anything on the WaterAid site re Ethos. Do you have a link?
November 6th, 2006 at 8:04 am
Here are some info
Didn’t find anything on the water aid site or anything independent on the links between the two.
November 6th, 2006 at 2:10 pm
Zafa,
I’m glad you found Ethos and support what we are doing. If you peruse our site and go to the ‘who we help’ tab, you can find info about the program in Bangladesh, as well as others. Here is a link to the WaterAid USA site:
http://www.wateraid.org/usa/about_us/newsroom/2818.asp
that you can use to find their reference to this program.
I hope that this is helpful in providing you greater clarity and certainty about your concerns and faith in our work.
Best regards,
Peter Thum
founder, Ethos Water
November 6th, 2006 at 8:07 pm
Hey Peter:
It’s the rare corporate chieftain who dares venture into unknown blog territory - so first, let me bid you welcome and also say ‘thank you’ for stopping by.
But second, now that you are here, how about facilitating a connection with tea? With Starbucks and all that, can we do a bit of fair trade tea? The tea pickers in north eastern Bangladesh (Sylhet) are mostly aboriginal tribeswomen who look quaint picking tea carrying babies or young children slung across their necks. But look closer, and you see that they are woking barefeet on a 45 degree slope. Look even closer and you’ll find out that they make their base rate of 27 takas (about 40 cents) per day only if they pick a minimum quota of 21 kg of tea leaves - a couple of leaves at a time!
So how about some fair trade tea? If you can talk Howard into it, we can work wonders with a few extra dollars. [See http://drishtipat.org/dpchallenge ]
Best,
Muhit Rahman
November 6th, 2006 at 9:34 pm
Thanks Peter for dropping a few lines. Yes I do believe Ethos has taken a great initiative.
When I think of the hundreds-of-thousands of residents in those two villages that will have better sanitation and source of drinking water, it just makes feel good, and makes me wish more and more corporations would follow suit. And thanks for the link to water-aid.
Shafiur bhai, I can see why you think I got the info from Starbuck corp., because I didn’t provide the link for the Ethos page (I should’ve done so), where indeed I acquired all my info from (didn’t go to any Starbuck site for any info, just saw the poster in a Starbuck shop).
I like the idea that profit-making can be combined with charity. The initiative undertaken by Ethos founders impressed me.
And for them to be able to increase their sales, what better way than to go in partnership with Starbuck, that already has so many outlets worldwide where they supply bottled water on a regular basis.
November 7th, 2006 at 2:39 pm
During the 1st anti-globalization protests in Seattle, I cheered every time the TV camera showed groups running wild in the streets. The smashed Starbucks window, the Banana Republic storefront with splattered pink paint (matching the pink pashminas) gave us hope. Another world is possible we thought. I wrote a piece for Daily Star with the heavy title “Battle of Seattle”. Farhad Mazhar came back to Dhaka all fired up, and wrote one after another “jalamoi” article. Buffeted by the collapse of the traditional left, and unable to embrace the vision of the Islamists, we found a new space for progressive politics in the anti-globalization movement.
Almost a decade has passed, and the movement has also changed. It is no longer just “anti”, it is also for something. The rhetoric, the tactic, the focus has shifted. Many organizations like WSF and Helsinki Process have brought those protesters into the same room with the people they once abhorred, debating but also have constructive dialogue.
One of the shifts is the understanding for at least some of us that Starbucks, Gap, McDonalds, Banana Republic, Danone, etc are not going to disappear off the face of the earth (during Seattle, we thought something different– “egula gurai felbo” said a friend in Dhaka). Knowing that, we have two options (not mutually exclusive):
1. Create alternative corporations, that are ethical as well as profitable. Working Assets is one of many examples.
2. Work with the existing corporations to reform their ways and force them into doing ethical business.
3. While work with some corporations, guard against providing cover for other fundamentally unethical businesses.
I think this project fits into #2
Further reading:
The Corporation
http://www.thecorporation.com/
Life & Debt
http://www.lifeanddebt.org/
Corporate Watch
http://www.corporatewatch.org/
No Logo
http://www.nologo.org/
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/politicsphilosophyandsociety/story/0,,1696661,00.html
Wobblies
http://www.iww.org/
November 8th, 2006 at 12:08 am
Zafa, the ethos site is Starbucks. Starbucks own them! Peter has pointed to the wateraid usa site.
Naeem: there was a neo-classical economist called Deepak Lal - well there still is, I assume he is still kicking about - who famously got up the wicks of many progressives/lefties especially in India by declaring coca cola a good thing given the market failures around clean water. So your schema’s point 2 is an attenuated form of neo-classical nuttiness. But as you say, engagement is necessary as they are not gonna disappear. But “the market is best” tilt needs to be problematised always as you observe in your point 3.
November 16th, 2006 at 3:16 pm
The following is from a site I visit called Care2. While the info. is not directly about Ethos, it is about Starbucks, and I think that those who want to put in their two cents could do so…..
Each year, coffee companies rake in profit by the billions. Last year alone, Starbucks earned $5.8 billion in net revenues.
Yet, for every cup of coffee Starbucks sells ($1.80 for a venti), poor farmers in coffee-growing countries like Ethiopia make about three cents. Call on Starbucks to give farmers their fair share of coffee profits.
Cheap overseas labor and production is nothing new for large corporations. But Starbucks claims to be different. Their website states: “Starbucks strongly believes in the importance of building mutually-beneficial relationships with coffee farmers and coffee communities with which we work.”
In reality, Starbucks rakes in premium profits that Ethiopian brand names command, while the farmers providing their supply have been left behind in poverty.
With as many as 15 million Ethiopians dependent on coffee revenues, the Ethiopian government has asked Starbucks to sign a licensing agreement that will give Ethiopia trademark control over the names on its coffee. This will allow Ethiopia to determine an export price that ensures a larger share of profits for farmers, enabling them to feed their children, send them to school and pay for better healthcare.
Ask Starbucks to sign the agreement giving Ethiopia trademark control over its coffee, ensuring farmers get their fair share of coffee profits. Go to: http://go.care2.com/e/R1xq/APe./EqB5
November 16th, 2006 at 4:07 pm
On the bottled water thing, William Baldwin of Forbes Magazine wrote this:
“Starbucks sells Ethos bottled water with a promise to use $10 million from the sales to assist in the development of clean water supplies in the Third World. A worthy end but an inefficient means. Only a nickel of your $1.85 goes to the charity. And why is the water so expensive? Because, to get it to you, Starbucks consumes a lot of diesel fuel and polyethylene terephthalate.
Drink tap water and send a donation to Care USA.”
And a thumbsdown also for Ethoswater from
http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061021/COLUMNIST25/610210336/1020/NEWS04
February 10th, 2007 at 8:08 pm
Thanks man, i agree
May 7th, 2007 at 9:46 pm
Ethos idea is great [in principle], but in practice, if their goal is “truly” to help the cause of the 1.5 billion people in the world who do not have access to pure water, then we [the consumers] should be able to buy ethos readily and not just at starbucks?? it costs a lot less than $1.85 retail to provide a liter of pure water (less that $0.01/L using the most expensive technology!!)
Let’s get fooled my a marketing gimmick by some ex-mckinsey brats who are in it for the money and not the social cause they claim.
Similary, if Starbucks “truly” wanted to promote fair trade coffee, they wouldn’t jsut carry a token 1 product in their extensive like of coffee brands!!!
Sorry Peter Thum, your true intentions are not hard to see. Consumers are not stupid or uninformed.
May 10th, 2007 at 5:12 am
Rezwan,
I understand your comments, but in Ethos’ defense, I must say that I knew Peter when he was first staring the company and his true intentions actually were just that: true. He really did spend a lot of time in South Africa and really did witness, firsthand, how the lack of clean drinking water affects everything in people’s lives who are denied access to it. Granted, everyone needs to make a living, but Peter worked harder than anyone I have ever met and, in starting Ethos, truly did want to make a difference in this world. Incidentally, I asked Peter the same question you did in your post: why are you charging a buck 85 (or in NY $2) for a bottle of water? He said that first of all, $2 is not actually much more than any other brand (and still less than some other designer waters) and also that since part of the proceeds really do go to the mission of providing clean water around the world, it is worth the extra few cents.
I’m sure if Ethos had not been bought by Starbucks, they could have given more of their proceeds to water projects around the world, but then again, they might not have had the wide distribution that they currently enjoy being part of a large company. Not that I am a Starbucks apologist- far from it, but I do see the logic in this.
Additionally, I would not be surprised if eventually we will be able to buy Ethos water elsewhere outside of Starbucks, but it takes a long time for business deals concerning distribution of products into a general market to go through. So, sit tight, be patient and keep buying Ethos when you can.
Best,
ShBnyc