Ethos water is a brand of bottled water with a social mission of "helping children get clean water." Ethos began in 2001 when Peter Thum had the idea after working in communities in South Africa that lacked access to clean water. Thum, who was working as consultant for McKinsey & Company at the time, realized the potential to create a bottled water brand to raise awareness and funding for safe water programs. The idea became an obsession for Thum, and he wrote the business plan for Ethos, left McKinsey, and moved to New York in early 2002 to start the venture.[1]
Thum recruited his business school classmate Jonathan Greenblatt to join Ethos in late 2002. They launched operations as a bottled water company in August 2003, and also formed a non-profit called Ethos International to invest funds from the business in safe water programs.[2]
In 2005 Starbucks purchased the company for $8 million and its products are now sold throughout North America.[3] After Starbucks' acquisition, the brand has become known for its campaign to raise ten million dollars by donating between five and ten cents from every sale to a non-governmental organization working to increase access to clean drinking water in the developing world.
Bottled water can be a problem in the amount and type of waste it generates. The Ethos brand apparently has selected bottles made of a polyethylene terephthalate (PET) instead of polycarbonates that use bisphenol A (BPA) as part of its manufacturing process.
Since only $0.05-0.10 of the retail price ($1.80) goes to charity,[4] the Ethos brand is primarily commercial. Nevertheless, according to the Ethos water homepage, the company has raised around $6.2 million for this purpose to date.[5] It has been argued [6] that donating $100 to CharityWater would be equivalent to purchasing 2,000 bottles of Ethos, without the environmental impact associated with 2,000 bottles composed of non-recycled plastic.
Ethos water is manufactured by PepsiCo, but unlike other Pepsi products, Ethos bottles do not contain recycled plastic.[7]
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