Remember, the alternative to what Fiji's doing is just ignoring the environmental part of the equation altogether. Which is just what the majority of the bottled drinks industry is doing.

And yes, it is smart marketing. Until the U.S. abandons capitalism, we need to encourage companies (even companies that have a fundamentally environmentally harmful business) to do just what Fiji is doing.

I wonder if their calculations factor in their nifty square bottles. Those must pack much more efficiently than the round ones everyone else uses, and they're durable enough to be reusable.

The water comes from the tears of children who cry from being overjoyed with tickles, the bottles are made from organically grown plants that preserve the rainforest, and the bottles are delivered from butterflies reared in a nature preserve. You can't help but disregard tap water and pick up a bottle of Fiji.

@ 123 (and 3 I know you're joking). This argument that Fiji is doing more than other companies is ridiculous. Fiji is shipping an commodity to the other side of the world. It's a complete waste of energy and unnecessary pollution. If they cared about the environment at all they would shut down operations.

Fiji is a marketing company plain and simple, and saying they are greener than other companies is about as true as saying their water is better. Their marketing is better, the water is EXACTLY the same.

Why drink bottled water when we are lucky enough to be able to drink tap water. At least that is the case for me as I live in Canada.

I'll admit I have been guilty of purchasing bottled water before when I am dying of thirst and there's no alternative.

If you are interested, I am planning on writing an article about it on my blog: samanthaiam.wordpress.com

Please visit and share with me what you think about bottled water! :)

Hi, my name is Barbara, and I work for FIJI Water. Thank you for your feedback! We appreciate hearing your perspective on the work we’re doing. In fact, we've been reaching out to treehugger.com folks to discuss this and would be delighted to speak with you in person. In the meantime, I have a few comments and questions.

First, I'd like to clarify that we are not "blaming" our products' emissions on our supply chain partners. On the contrary, we're taking responsibility for these emissions by including them in our carbon footprint and in our reduction and offset goals. This is important so that consumers can understand the products' true environmental impact. We think everyone should do this to ensure consumers are fully informed when they seek to make responsible decisions.

Next, we appreciate your recognition that much of the environmental work we’re doing in Fiji probably wouldn’t get done without us. But when you say "it's not so nice" a bottled water company is doing it, do you mean you only want the people you like to do good things for the planet? And the people you don’t like shouldn’t get a chance to help too? That seems to limit the amount of good we can all do for the Earth.

Also, why do you use treehugger.com's estimate of FIJI Water's carbon footprint when we've published a footprint that was verified by ICF International, a leading authority on GHG inventories and climate change? There's more info at http://www.fijigreen.com//OurAnnualFootprint.html - we've provided ICF's assurance report and a detailed description of our methodology for anyone to read. And this way you can be sure the analysis isn't based on false assumptions like the blogger's statement that we ship preforms from China to Fiji.

Finally, I'd ask you to consider the fact that FIJI Water does good in other ways, by offering a healthy alternative to more processed, emissions-intensive beverages like soft drinks, and through economic benefits to the nation of Fiji. Without FIJI Water, Fiji would lose 20% of its exports and several hundred of its best paid manufacturing jobs. I know these problems may seem distant to you, but imagine the people affected were your children, your parents, your friends...how would you feel then?

And the other readily available income options would have an environmental impact far greater than that of FIJI Water. The Sovi Basin rainforest was a logging concession until Conservation International and later on FIJI Water came along and saved it. Logging the Sovi Basin would have released 10 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and destroyed a shelter for many endangered species. There's a scary thought for anyone who cares about the environment.

We would love to discuss all this further with you. We know you have a passion for the environment, and it's important for people who care about these things to share what they think with one another, especially when they don't see eye to eye on everything. How else will we all learn to become better environmental stewards?

great blog

I know Doug, and the Fijians themselves always wonder why on earth we want their water!

It took a bit of digging, but here's Fiji Waters' own measurement of their carbon footprint:

Bottle Size - Carbon Footprint (grams CO2eq)
330 ml - 230
500 ml - 302
1 L - 573
1.5 L - 801

Couldn't agree more with the concluding paragraph here. So glad to see Fiji is doing this worthwhile thing, but what's the point, really? If they ceased building a fortune converting an essential resource into a non-essential commodity, we'd all be better off. The folks at Think Outside the Bottle (.org) are doing a good job of addressing this and other greenwashing tactics by the industry.

Being water, yes its all wasteful, but if you must bottle water, then it HAS to be in glass bottles. No plastic bottles, at the very least! I would buy water in a glass bottle if I really HAD to, meaning if I were dehydrated. But if tea is the only non-soda option in glass, then that will be it.

you say the planet needs all the help it can get? actually the organisms on the planet need the help. the planet is 100% fine all of the time.

1) If you want to save the environment, cut out Fiji Water. Drink tap water and send money direct (I suggest $1/liter -- win win!)

2) "Finally, I'd ask you to consider the fact that FIJI Water does good in other ways, by offering a healthy alternative to more processed, emissions-intensive beverages like soft drinks,"

But not to tap water?

"economic benefits to the nation of Fiji. Without FIJI Water, Fiji would lose 20% of its exports and several hundred of its best paid manufacturing jobs. I know these problems may seem distant to you, but imagine the people affected were your children, your parents, your friends...how would you feel then?"

The children! Think of the children ... that the company executives are sending to private schools with the fat profits we get selling water to Nobu...

Sorry -- but the "jobs" argument is one of the most-repeated and worst. I am an economist and it ALWAYS annoys me to hear people claiming that this job or that job depends on a bad business. Should we keep the war in Iraq going so that all those nice truck drivers from Halliburton can keep making $100k/year while raping their female colleagues? No. The same holds (without the war and rape :) for Fiji Water. It's a company that exists only because people are obsessed with status water.

3) A Colbert spoof on bottled water (via my blog)

The issue I have with carbon offsets is the fact that pollution is still being created. Just because you bought an offset does not take the pollution back out of the atmosphere.

If a large part of the pollution is coming from Fiji's down line then really what does it matter what Fiji is doing, its all about there down line creating all kinds of pollution and as said before its not needed .

It will never get through to those trying to profit from water that bottling it and driving it all over the earth is very wasteful....

I have been struggling with the issue of bottled water vs tap water for quite a while. I understand the carbon footprint issue and it is a major consideration but I have some other issues that I would like to bring out.

I cycle as my primary form of transportation and I live in the deep South of the US at the foothills of the Appalachians. We have both mountains and heat here and I mix that with constant physical exertion. I had primarily used bottled water (mostly from a local company that gets its water from a neighboring state) prior to my understanding of the carbon footprint issue. Now I have a water filter installed on my tap and I have been using that water for almost a year now.

Here are my experiences:
With the bottled water from a good source (of which I would include Fiji water), I noticed that I needed to drink less water and got much more out of it. I did not have issues with dehydration headaches, nor did I always need to pee. It seems like my body used the water more completely and it had some trace minerals that also seemed to help.

Since I have been using local tap water (from a local source that is considered one of the better tap sources in the country), I find that I constantly need to keep drinking and seem to get less out of it. I constantly need to pee and it seems that I never can get enough. It also seems that I am more likely to bloat from the excess water which my body seems to want to shed. Despite all of this, my body does not get enough water, and I find that I need to drink coconut water to replenish and ward off the dehydration headaches.

I haven't given up yet on filtered water from the tap, but in most cases one has to understand that the water is mostly dead... not only is it zapped with chemicals either through ground water contamination (lots of medications are starting to show up in the local tap), or from the chlorine and whatever else they dump in there. However, after applying the filter to protect yourself from the harmful additives to the water, you also remove anything of value from it. Having lived in Hawaii and drank water from a well, it is hard to describe the effects on ones body from breathing clean air and drinking clean water. You have to experience it to truly understand.

So I understand two different conflicting issues between health and our environment. However, having to depend on coconut water that has to be imported into my area to avoid drinking bottled water doesn't seem like I am accomplishing much. The only benefit of the coconut water is that I need to drink a whole lot less of it to replenish myself.

Oh please Barbabra, the only person who believes your PR noise is you.

The very idea of bottling water and shipping it around the world is absurd. Every liter of water requires several liters of water to produces. And then there is the energy need to produce the bottles and run the bottling process. And of course let's not forget the petroleum need to make the material for the bottles. Massive amounts of energy are wasted producing a product that becomes trash as soon as it's consumed.

All of this for a completely useless product. Bottled water is the poster child for how we got into the environmental mess we're in.

Stop buying bottled water and soda products.

Treehugger - why are you covering this compete misrepresentation by Fiji?
Even 5 minutes worth of homework would show you that they are by no means leading the industry. I know of two brands much more environmentally sound than this terribly over-hyped water. Check out Belu and Icelandic Glacial (www.belu.org) (www.icelandicglacial.com) - bottled water companies that don't just talk the talk...these guys are already there!
Fiji is simply marketing hype - I hope that you don't buy into it.
The BBC even exposed Fiji for what it really is on their Panaorama program. I suggest that you watch it!

Man! I knew this site was a front for socialist agenda's but really! Can you imagine another bottled beverage company doing this kind of "first step" efforts at all? And then one of the posters suggests that the US abandon Capitalism? Really- it is Capitalism that makes insane uniformed comments like that possible!!
Do you think Putin and his KGB cronies would tolerate a state comapny being excoriated like this? Or China ? I don't think the train ticket to the gulag would even have dry ink before your one way trip to Siberia.

Companies are in business to offer jobs( Fiji employs hundreds of Filians at wages well above the legal minimum wage on the islands) and yes, make a profit and those profits allow countires like ours to collect taxes( which are some of the lowest in the industrial world) and offer services like schools, roads, etc. but if your comments are of any indication you spent your youth reading Mien Kamp and everything Marx ever got published.

Here's a thought GROW UP, DO WHAT YOU CAN to HELP and then use tap water whenever possible but abandoning Capitalism is just nonsensical at best and pure idiotcy at the worst!