GREENBLATT

 

Bottled-water magnate transforms problematic product into a solution

By PAUL HAIST

article created on: 2009-02-15T00:00:00

Jonathan Greenblatt has a low opinion of the bottled-water industry here and around the world.

The former Clinton White House advisor who also served on President Obama’s transition team and who partnered with Peter Thum in the founding of Ethos Water was in Portland Feb. 3 to address the Men’s Night Out event at the Mittleman Jewish Community Center.

Men’s Night Out is a project of the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland designed to bring together Jewish men of all ages for an evening of good food, friendship and learning. Some 120 men attended.

Greenblatt began by recounting the dire circumstan­ces around the world in which he said 2.6 billion people lack basic sanitation, 1 billion lack safe drinking water, and water-related diseases are the biggest killer of children.

“To think that diarrhea is killing children is intolerable,” he said.

He lamented that “the world water crisis is not a foreign policy priority in this country or almost any other.”

He ridiculed the large corporate Epurveyors of bottled water—he singled out Dasani and Aquafina—who, he said, sell local tap water in environmentally unfriendly plastic bottles at a markup some 10,000 times its cost.

He ridiculed also the companies that actually do import water from afar, adding to its expense and carbon footprint with transportation costs.

“The idea that you have to go to France for water is nuts,” said Greenblatt.

If the bottled water industry is so problematic, why would a young, ethically-minded, Jewishly conscious entrepreneur committed to the ideal of tikkun olam (healing the world) go into the bottled water business?

Acknowledging that people are probably going to continue to buy bottled water in spite of its negative implications, Greenblatt asked, “Can you convert that bottle of water from an extravagance into an act of preservation? That is the idea behind Ethos Water.”

He said the company was created with two goals in mind: Help children get water and educate people. The latter goal includes two components: Raise awareness of the problem in the United States and educate people in the third world about sanitation and water quality.

They do that by donating five cents for every bottle of Ethos Water sold to a fund administered by the Starbucks Foundation. The goal is to make $10 million in grant commitments to humanitarian water programs by 2010. To date, Ethos Water has committed grants exceeding $6.2 million that will benefit more than 420,000 people across Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Ethos Water was subsequently acquired by Starbucks. Greenblatt said Starbucks shares Ethos Water’s commitment to service, while offering a high-traffic market. Ethos Water is sold in Starbucks stores, as well as other venues.

“Forty million people walk through Starbucks every week,” said Greenblatt. “Here was a chance to transform these stores into classrooms (on the world water crisis).”

He expressed his hope that efforts such as his would help to create a movement here to address the crisis.

Greenblatt adjured his audience to join that movement by taking part in the 17th annual United Nations World Water Day on March 22 when activists will march in key cities to draw attention to the need for change.

“Let’s use that day to galvanize people with water walks,” he said, standing before the projected image of Abraham Joshua Heschel marching with Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Creating a movement has permeated Jewish culture,” he said. “We come from a tradition that is about tikkun olam.”