British mineral water firm taps ethical market

A socially conscious entrepreneur is using Britain's thirst for bottled water and growing ethical awareness to help improve access to drinking water around the world.

Belu Natural Mineral Water, based in London, counts supermarkets Waitrose, Tesco Plc and specialist food retailer Fresh & Wild among its customers, and pours most of its profits into clean water projects in developing countries including India and in northern Africa.

Belu bottles water from springs in northwestern England and uses glass and bio-degradable bottles made from corn, helping it turn carbon-neutral last year. It wants to be greener than competitors who export water or use plastic bottles.

"We think consumers, when faced with the choice of an environmentally friendly and a non-environmentally friendly product, will choose the first, and be prepared to pay a slight premium," Belu managing director and co-founder Reed Paget said.

Belu was set up in 2004, and its sales in 2006 grew by 500 percent over the previous year and are expected to rise at the same pace in 2007, Paget said, but declined to disclose figures.

The company may try to raise capital from environment groups and charitable funds for its expansion, but will not opt for an initial public offering or a private placement, as that may "undermine the integrity of the brand", Paget said.

Britain's bottled water market is likely to grow more than 6 percent this year to total 1.85 billion pounds ($3.68 billion) as consumption hits 2.5 billion litres, according to research firm Mintel. Belu is up against global giants such as Danone, Nestle and PepsiCo.

Paget founded Belu on the principles of the United Nations Global Compact of 2000, which encourages companies to work with public and not-for-profit agencies towards social and environmental change.

Paget predicts that climate change will prompt more such partnerships.

"Climate change is as big an opportunity for businesses as it is a liability," he said. "It will force us to innovate and cause a systemic change in the way we do business."

Source : in.news.yahoo.com