Bottled Up – Belu Water
August 19, 2009 by green team
Filed under Tech & Science
Mark Read for Time
We often take bottled water for granted as a commonplace luxury. Past reports have indicated that the plastic waste generated from bottled water is clogging our landfills and worse our oceans. Now British bottle water company, Belu has created a bio-degradable bottle that is made from corn and can be composted in soil. Their profits which were just $13,000 in 2004 have now $4,000,000 in 2008 and what’s most notable is that their profits are poured into clean water delivery projects around the world–a cause truly worth drinking to.
green team
Entrepreneurial Heroes: Bottled Up
Time.com
by Adam Smith
Bottled water doesn’t get much greener than Belu’s. The British company’s drink was the world’s first to become carbon-neutral, in 2006. Its bottles, made from corn, can be composted into soil. Belu’s profits, meanwhile, are poured into projects that deliver clean water to parts of the world that lack access to it. And amid the thirst for all things sustainable, this has meant Belu — pronounced Blue — has gone down rather well. Sales of just $13,000 in 2004, its launch year, rose to close to $4 million in 2008. Defying the downturn, the company even managed a modest profit.
But getting consumers to buy is only half the battle. All the granola credentials in the world won’t fund a promising business. To potential investors, it’s pesky things like risk and reward that still matter most. And as an ambitious nonprofit firm surviving in a ferociously competitive sector — rivals include Coca-Cola and Nestlé — Belu has been stymied more than most. “We’ve struggled to get funding, as Belu is aimed at helping the environment, not lining investors’ pockets,” says Reed Paget, the Seattle native who is the company’s chief executive and founder. “That’s put a lot of strain on the company.”
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