A 600million dollar bottled water industry exists in Australia and when people choose to purchase Thankyou Water, 100% of the profit Thankyou Water makes funds projects that help thousands and one day millions of people gain access to safe water. It’s a simple idea but the process is a little unfamiliar to most people because it’s different to traditional charity.
- the spring to you
- you to the field
- structure & claims
- the environment
Traditional charity
We all understand the basic concept of traditional charity. You give your donation to a charity organisation and it, in turn, carries out the charitable work. There is usually an administrative fee taken by the charity but the majority of your donation goes toward the charitable work.
Social enterprise
A social enterprise takes a different approach. Our business is set up to be competitive in the bottled water market and to make as much profit as possible for the sole purpose of funding water projects in the affected areas of developing nations.
Thankyou Water is not a charity - it's a social enterprise!
Any business that creates a product has many costs involved i.e. raw materials, manufacturing, distribution and so on. If you had $2.50 and wanted to use it to help someone get clean water we would advise you to donate it directly to a charity that funds water projects, simply because there are fewer costs involved.
But let’s say you had $2.50 and you were about to purchase a bottle of water to quench your thirst, pause right there, this is where Thankyou Water comes in. Instead of purchasing a bottle that will go to making some big company even more money, you could choose to provide at least a month’s worth of drinking water to someone in need, by choosing to buy Thankyou Water instead.
From the spring to you
The day we began research on how to establish a bottled water brand and break into the market initiated a very steep learning curve for us. What is a surprise is that most outlets or retailers purchase their water at a wholesale rate in some cases as low as 35 cents per bottle, depending on which brand you are looking at!
Imported bottled water at a wholesale rate is roughly $1.00 but the majority of the brands that we have come across sit around the 40-90cent mark. Retailers then sell the water to you at an average price ranging between $2.00 -$3.50.
Built into every bottled water brand’s wholesale rate are their raw material costs, the cost to bottle the water, storage & distribution costs and then costs associated with marketing and growing a brand. We quickly discovered the industry profit margins are thin and to be successful the key is selling a high volume of product.
We sell at a wholesale rate to distributors who then sell the water to café’s. We also sell directly to some retailers or we sell the water at events across Australia.
Where does Thankyou Water fit in?
We are just like any other bottled water brand, except when you purchase Thankyou Water all of our profit go towards funding water projects. We sell our water at a wholesale rate to our distributors and retailers. Once the operating costs are taken out, the profit we make is enough to provide at least one month’s worth of drinking water to someone in need. *It’s not feasible to measure profit per bottle because the procedure to get the water on different shelves around the country varies in costs. But we have worked out an average, and then to be safe brought our claim down below the bare minimum we give, in some cases a bottle of water provides much more than a month’s worth of water.
We want Thankyou Water to be available for as many people as possible across Australia. We could have tried asking a café or retailer to sell the water for $2.50 and then give us the whole $2.50 however; this strategy would probably get us into a handful of cafes.
Instead, we simply ask them to swap the water they currently stock with Thankyou Water. The café or retailer still makes a normal margin, but by making that choice, they are making a huge difference as well bringing you the opportunity to change the world with Thankyou Water. Without our stockists, Thankyou Water is simply a nice idea that never got anywhere - we love our stockists!
Some people wonder, considering there are so many costs involved, if it’s worth going to all the effort. Let’s look at Coca Cola Amatil who own Mt Franklin and Pump. It’s safe to say that even though the margins are thin and there are many costs involved, the friendly people at Mt Franklin and Pump who dominate the 600 million dollar bottled water industry think it’s very worth it! We aim to capture as much of the bottled water market that already exists and turn it into something that really changes the world. So next time you’re thirsty choose Thankyou Water.
How we provide water
Thankyou Water works with established non-governmental organisations (otherwise known as charities) that have a proven track record of running projects that provide access to safe and reliable water sources in affected areas of developing countries.
We use what is called a ‘projects-based model’. Essentially, this means that we don’t form exclusive partnerships with any one organisation. Rather, we partner with specific projects that need to meet all our project and accountability requirements. Once the required criteria has been met, we provide the funding and the charity will do all the work ‘on the ground’. Subsequently, they provide us with reports; we visit the project for ourselves and then report the results to TW drinkers via our website: thankyouwater.org/projects.
What we look for in a sustainable water project
- Community participation
Local commmunities are involved in the design, implementation and evaluation of the project. It is important that solutions are tailored to a communities specific needs. - Health and hygiene education
The project provides education on health and hygiene - this is vital to the success of the water project. - Sanitation
While TW doesn't fund sanitation our partners ensure that education and access to sanitation is provided. - Fair distribution
The project's beneficiaries are not discriminated against according to their age, race or religion. The project encourages gender quality. - Sustainability
The project's benefits need to continue long after the project has ceased. This means that the benefits need to be appropriate, owned by the stakeholders and can be maintained by locally available resources. - Building local capacity
The project seeks to build the capacity of the local community so that it is empowered to improve it's own situation
What we look for in a project partner
- ACFID code of conduct
All of our project partners are needed to adhere to the ACFID code of conduct - Focus
Conduct projects in regions that have a desperate need for increased access to and quality of water sources. This includes South-east Asia, Southern Asia, Oceania and Sub-Saharan Africa. - Accountabile
All our our partners have strong systems and process in place to manage, monitor and evaluate projects. They consistently report on the progress of their work to TW. They allow the TW team to visit projects. - GPS coordinates
Each partner provides the GPS coordinates for our projects - so TW drinkers can see just where the projects are. - A 'charity'
The partner needs to be a non- government and not-for-profit organisation. Its governing body voluntarily offers it's services.
What we fund
Thankyou Water uses its profits to fund water projects. This includes the ‘hardware’ (the physical materials and equipment) and the ‘software’ (the health and hygiene education, skills training, labour and the monitoring and evaluation) aspects of the project, to make sure that the impact is sustainable.
Often a project partner has a ‘holistic’ approach to a project. This means that water is an aspect of a wider community development project that may involve: sanitation, education, vocational training, agriculture, micro-finance and much more. To uphold our promise that your purchase funds water projects in developing countries – we ensure that the profit goes only to the water component of a broader community development project.
Structure & claims
Thankyou Water is a social enterprise that exists for a single purpose: to bring clean drinking water to those in need. Our goal is to give people around Australia the opportunity to change entire communities through a simple, everyday purchase. For this reason, 100% of our profit funds water projects in developing nations. For every bottle sold, at least one month’s worth of water is provided to someone in need.
“100% of our profit funds water projects in developing nations.”
Thankyou Water is not just a project; it is a sustainable social enterprise. Like any normal business we have expenses. We have costs associated with making our product, running our company, getting bottles onto shelves and from there, into your hands. Although we are a business we have a fundamental point of difference. We were founded for the single purpose of funding water projects with our profits.
This profit is the figure remaining after our costs have been deducted. As a competitive, sustainable business we aim to meet and exceed the profit margins that exist within our industry. Every decision we make, with the help of our advisors and board are with the focus of maximizing sustainable profit that funds our water projects.
“Every bottle you purchase will provide at least one month’s worth of safe water to someone in need.”
Every water project incurs a different cost and helps a different amount of people. To ensure that every bottle brings at least one month’s worth of water, we take the per capita cost of each project and divide it by 20 years*, or 240 months. This tells us the cost to provide one person with one month’s worth of water in any particular project. The profit from each bottle always covers this amount, and in some cases, we are able to give even more.
*Our projects are built to last a lifetime, but for the sake of this claim, we base it on a minimum of 20 years.
Structure
The business that you know as Thankyou Water is Thankyou Water Pty Ltd. It is a registered Australian company that has no individual owners, instead it is owned entirely by the Thankyou Charitable Trust.
Click here to read the official letter from our accounting firm.
Thankyou Water is committed to sustainability and the protection of the environment. Therefore, we have identified the three main environmental issues surrounding bottled water; the carbon footprint, water wastage in the bottling process and issues surrounding PET bottles and landfill. Thankyou Water is taking appropriate steps to ensure our environmental responsibility.
Reducing carbon footprint
Thankyou Water’s bottling plant is committed to becoming carbon neutral. This will greatly reduce Thankyou Water’s impact on the environment. Our new bottling process will significantly reduce the transportation of raw materials to the plant, as all bottles will be made and filled one site.
Reducing water wastage in the bottling process
Thankyou Water uses a bottling process unique to the Australian market. Our bottling company has invested in technology that reduces water wastage, as it does not require water to rinse the bottles in the initial process. This new process also eliminates water wastage during the filling stage and ensures guaranteed levels (600ml) are met for every unit produced.
Reducing landfill
One of the main issues surrounding bottled water relates to the amount of bottles that end up in landfill. Thankyou Water will be taking the following steps:
- The short term
Thankyou Water has reviewed its bottle mould and has reduced the weight of the bottle (amount of PET used) by 38%. This has made Thankyou Water one of the lightest bottles in the country meaning that our new PET output is nearly half of our past output. - The long term
Thankyou Water continues to investigate, with the support of our bottling plant, PLA (biodegradable material) as a material for its bottle. A biodegradable solution will solve the issues surrounding landfill.