Water for Water
An Interview with Peter Thum,
Founder of Ethos Water and Vice President, Starbucks

If you walk into your neighborhood Starbucks, you will find an unusual brand of bottled water at the counter. Ethos Water promises to donate five cents from every bottle sold to help children get clean water, hoping to give ten million dollars by the end of the decade. In 2002, Peter Thum left the consulting firm McKinsey and Company after returning from a project in Africa to work for a soft drink manufacturer in England. He and co-founder Jonathan Greenblatt envisioned a unique brand that could empower consumers of bottled water to help those without any clean water. Starbucks acquired Ethos Water in 2005 and now sells only this brand in its thousands of stores. In June 2006, Starbucks and PepsiCo signed an agreement to market the brand in retail stores across North America.

Mr. Thum spoke with P.H. about the mission of Ethos Water to affect the world water crisis and its unique combination of for-profit business and social consciousness.

P.H.: When you founded Ethos Water, did you envision that the company would be as successful as it is now?

Thum: Certainly that's what my business plan said. I believed in the idea and thought it would work. Its development isn't very far off from what I thought in terms of my projections. The pathway there has been different, but where we ended up and how big the brand is and where it's headed are quite similar to what I originally wanted it to be.

P.H.: When did you first have the idea for the company? Were you interested in starting a business or were you inspired by the world's water crisis and think of a bottled water company as a means to an end?

Thum: There was a period of about six months between leaving Africa, where I had originally seen people living with a lack of clean water, and working on another project for McKinsey where I saw the branding opportunities in the bottled water market. I realized that I could possibly make a connection through creating a business to help people that I had seen who needed help.

Ultimately, what Ethos does in terms of being an information platform and creating opportunities for people to not only become aware but actually do something about addressing the world water crisis is what is most important about the brand.

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