Greenwashed: Fiji Water Bottles the Myth of Sustainability
Corporate attempts to label their products as “green” for the sake of turning a fast buck are nothing new. Corporations exist, after all, in order to make money, and capitalizing on whatever is capturing the public’s collective imagination is often the best way of doing so. But Fiji Artisanal Water’s entree into the green movement strikes us as particularly suspect.
Corporate attempts to label their products as “green” for the sake of turning a fast buck are nothing new. Corporations exist, after all, in order to make money, and capitalizing on whatever is capturing the public’s collective imagination is often the best way of doing so. But Fiji Artisanal Water’s entree into the green movement strikes us as particularly suspect.
The company has recently launched fijigreen.com, a website outlining the ways in which their water is “good for the environment.”
If you’re anything like us, you are probably wondering how this claim could be true.
It can’t.
While Fiji’s Artisanal Water’s commitment to reducing their packaging, investing in rainforest renewal and reducing their carbon emissions may be applauded by some, these measures are not enough to make them a green company. By definition, bottled water is simply not an environmentally friendly product.
When companies package and sell water, they take a natural resource that falls freely from the sky from communities that need it, stick it in plastic bottles (made from oil, of course), and ship it across the globe to sell it for hundreds, sometimes thousands of times its actual value. And while Fiji and its cohorts can encourage consumers to recycle, the fact of the matter is that 86% of empty plastic water bottles in the United States end up in the trash, instead of being recycled.
With citizens and governments around the world abuzz with worries of oil shortages, how can companies continue to manufacture a needless product that directly contributes to this impending crisis, let alone have the audacity to proclaim it “green?”
The most sustainable water option isn’t actually green at all (if it were, that would be a bit scary). It’s actually quite clear: tap water. It’s convenient, delivered through energy-efficient means, and in most cases, is just as healthy and pure as its froufy bottled counterparts--sometimes cleaner. Even better, it requires spending very little green in order to do something green.
For more on why tap water is a better alternative to bottled, check out our resources at www.takebackthetap.org. Then tell us how you feel about Fiji Artisanal Water’s not-so-green marketing machine.
Smorgasboard
Funny thing that in Dr. Strangelove, the craziest person in the movie was the one who said flouridation was bad for you. You couldn't ask for a more glowing thumb's up for flouride than seeing that someone who was against it was also for starting World War III.
Smorgasboard
A buzz word; a fantasy; a dream; a token gesture; a genuine concern and commitment to change?
There is little agreement about what the term actually means, and a plethora of definitions.
The whole concept of sustainability, which is riven with contradictions and paradoxes, has been hijacked by technocentric neoclassical thinking.
Sustainability is subjected to cost/benefit analysis; the trouble is that the environment and natural world are not adequately valued by the market, if at all, and whilst costs, such as pollution are sometimes easier to pinpoint, benefits tend to be diffuse and hard to capture.
The market is based on theories and idealized assumptions. As we are only too frequently reminded, the market is not perfect!
How much is that view worth; that insect, that weed? How much would you pay for them?
The dominant economic theory is that market forces will guarantee supply; 'resources are infinite', where a commodity becomes scarce, and expensive, a substitute will be found, ad infinitum. Sustainable resource use is defined as optimization...A resource that is not used is seen as a waste.
Economic theory does not recognize that we exist in a system with limited resources and productivity, limited by the sun's energy. It does not recognize limits; the only acceptable face of progress is continued growth, otherwise the system will collapse into recession and we will all revert to subsistence.
Technology has enabled man to transcend the boundaries of biological constraints which limit all other forms of life; technology has always (so far) provided solutions ~ to feeding a growing population, to disease, to continued growth and development; to the problems we have created ~ and it will continue to do so. Or will it?
Companies' primary aim is maximizing profit; although ultimately they serve the consumer. They produce what we will pay for.
Governments are only in power for a short time, and notoriously poor at addressing long term problems and issues, especially those in the future. They do not want to make unpopular, or expensive decisions, or cause the economy to suffer. Make you voice heard and your vote count.
Ultimately it is down to us: to live sustainably, to lead by example, to educate other people, to promote sustainable behaviour, to make sacrifices; to use our purchasing power and our voices to change the culture of greed and materialistic waste, to denounce those who exploit under green credentials. Without determined and concerted action, nothing will change; lies and deceit, avoidance, hypocrisy, denial, meaningless words, broken promises, and inadequate commitments will continue to dominate.
The future is in YOUR hands, only YOU can make a difference, don't expect that someone else will do it.