WaterHealth International

Coordinates: 33°38′1″N 117°43′56″W / 33.63361°N 117.73222°W / 33.63361; -117.73222

WaterHealth International is a private, American multinational corporation headquartered in Irvine, California. The company operates as a social business that provides drinking water to communities in primarily rural areas.^[1] WaterHealth purifies and retails water through decentralized plants termed "WaterHealth Center," which serve an average consumer base of 10000.^[2] The company has installed around 500 WaterHealth Centers primarily in India, but also in Bangladesh, Ghana, Nigeria, and Liberia.^[2] Daily output of purified water across all of the WaterHealth Centers falls around 1.4 million liters.^[1]

The company was founded in 1995 as a market development firm that operated primarily in Mexico and the Philippines.^[2] By 2002 and 2003, however, the company reoriented its focus to water retailing services and began to center more heavily in Asia and Africa.^[2] The company currently operates through wholly owned subsidiaries like WaterHealth India and WaterHealth Ghana.^[2]

In 2014, the company entered into a partnership with The Coca-Cola Company to provide one million children across 2000 schools in developing nations with purified water, as part of Coca-Cola’s Child With Water (CWW) initiative.^[3] The two organizations also plan to raise social awareness of clean drinking water through educational programs. In addition to the CWW Initiative, The Coca-Cola Company has also taken a minority stake in WaterHealth.

History

WaterHealth was founded in 1995. The company began its operations when it won the bid to use a new Ultraviolet (UV) disinfectant technology invented by Ashok Gadgil, a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley who later became the Chief Technology Officer of WaterHealth International.^[4]

Shortly after 1995, WaterHealth established UV Waterworks Plants in Mexico and the Philippines. After limited success in those areas, Tralance Addy, the CEO appointed to the company in 2002, shifted the company’s focus to water distribution and retailing in Asia and Africa.^[4]

WaterHealth International first entered India in 2006 through its subsidiary, WaterHealth India, in the South Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.^[5] By 2011, the company had extended its operations to Gujarat and Karnataka.^[6] In 2008, WaterHealth International entered Ghana and in subsequent years, the company has established operations in Nigeria, Bangladesh and Liberia.^[7][4]

In 2009, Sanjay Bhatnagar was appointed as the CEO of WaterHealth International and Vikas Shah as COO. Tralance Addy currently serves as a member on the Board of Directors. As of mid-2010, more than 500 WaterHealthCenters (WHCs) have been installed in many countries including India, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Philippines, and Ghana, providing safe water to more than five million people around the world. WHI's aim was to take the UVW technology and its water system to needy communities throughout the world by establishing a global presence.

In January of 2014, WaterHealth launched its nonprofit arm, the Jaldhaara Foundation. According to officials at Jaldhaara, the foundation aims to both provide purified drinking water and educate underserved people on its importance. Additionally, Jaldhaara hopes to teach women how to operate local WaterHealth centers.^[8][9]

Corporate Partnerships

WaterHealth International has entered into corporate partnerships with a handful of companies since its inception. One such corporate partner is The Coca-Cola Company, which has partnered with WHI to provide water and education in Africa and India. The duo has since created the Child With Water Initiative in India and the Replenish Africa Initiative in West Africa.^[10][3] WaterHealth International also has ties with Diageo, a British multinational beverage company. The two organizations have created the “Water of Life” program to support projects that provide access to clean drinking water and advance environmental conservation, specifically in West Africa.^[10] Both the Diageo and Coca-Cola partnerships have been supported by the IFC and facilitated through the "Safe Water for Africa" consortium.^[11] A third partner is the A. K. Khan Group in Bangladesh.^[2] The partnership is a joint venture to install WaterHealth Centers across the country. Another corporate partnership was forged with Guinness, which commissioned a 70,000 USD WaterHealth Center in Ghana.^[12]

Operations

WaterHealth currently operates over 500 plants in India, Ghana, Nigeria, Liberia, and Bangladesh. These plants are decentralized purification centers that filter existing surface water into usable, drinking water. The purified water is typically sold in cans to primarily rural customers for an average of 10 cents (USD).^[1] In 2014, however, the company expanded its delivery and urban retailing service and began to brand their retailed water as dr. water.^[2] The company has stated on several occasions that its water is up to ISO standards.^[13] The current volume of water purified annually stands at over 700 million liters.^[2]

Impacts

According to a statistical experiment conducted by International Finance Corporation and IMRB International on WaterHealth India, observed consumers of the company were nine times less likely to contract waterborne diseases than their non-consumer counterparts in rural, Indian villages. Consequently, observed consumers, on average, saved 32% more money per annum than non-consumers of similar economic background.^[14]

References