Earth Water was founded by Kori Chilibeck, a student of political science at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, in 2004. The revenue of Earth Water comes from sales of bottled water in Canada, USA, Europe and Asia (Japan) and after paying competitive salaries to its employees it gives out all net income to UNHCR (United Nations Refugee Agency) which carries out campaigns to provide drinking water to those who do not have an access to such a vital resource. In the second year of its operations Earth Water had gross profit of $ 400 000 and net income sent to UN program amounted to $25 000 . One can say it is not a sound or significant funds. However, the fact that Earth Water is a very young company, it was able to break even and deliver profits in the first year of operations and is currently growing 350 per cent each month is a sound achievement, especially, in such an established industry as bottle water.
The core strategy of success of Earth Water is to produce the product locally: Canadian Earth Water comes from springs in Canada; it is bottled in Canada into the bottles that are also produced locally .
Earth Water is currently the only Fast-Moving-Consumer-Goods company allowed to use UNHCR logo on its products and it is donating 15 – 19 cents from every bottle sold to UN program which approximately the amount needed to provide a child with a daily norm of water .
Bottled water market is very competitive. And it is very hard for an entrant to compete with such giants as Pepsi, Coke and Nestle. It is even greater challenge for Earth Water to compete on the market since one of its target audiences is campus students. And Universities are normally having exclusive contract with supplier of beverages on the territory of campuses. However, the company believes that targeting students is an important aspect of success since students is an active and conscious audience.
Earth Water is also participating in various fairs and is organizing events which are aimed to increase the overall awareness of people about the water problems in developing countries.
In addition, currently the company is trying to go beyond plastic bottles which are hardly or even non-recyclable and use, for example, corn-based bottles which are decomposable and recyclable (already implemented in Canada) .
Source of inspiration
The CEO and the founder of Earth Water, Kori Chilibeck, traveled around 32 countries during his University times to understand what is going on in the real world. He found an inspiration for his enterprise while his trip in Nepal near the Mountain Everest base where the group he was traveling with met an barefoot man, wearing torn T-short and jeans in a really cold weather and caring a bundle of Coca Cola cans up to the tourist camp. With the help of an interpreter they got to know that a man was paid 50 cents a day for his job. At this moment Kori asked himself why “couldn’t a company pay their employees a competitive wage and compete on the world stage, and at the end of the day give back the profits to those who need is the most” .
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