Saving the earth by going “Unda Water”:

An interview with company co-founder, Jeff Quick

Tell me about Unda Water.
Unda Water is a new nonprofit bottled water company in Philadelphia, Pa., that gives its proceeds away to clean water and sanitation organizations in developing countries. You buy water here, and give water there.

How did this get started?
A couple of years ago my friend, Matt Feldman, and I were sitting around trying to figure out how to get solar and wind power to our houses on the cheap. If you’re curious, the answer is you can’t, but give it about 5–10 years.

In the process, though, Matt discovered biodegradable plastic bottles. And he said, “Hey, let’s sell something in these bottles!” That’s how it started. We wanted to sell something or other in these special bottles.

At first we thought, “Water! People like to buy bottled water, and we’ve got too many plastic bottles lying around anyway.” So we looked into it and discovered that because the bottles are biodegradable, water is able to evaporate out of them, which gives them about a 60-day shelf life. So that idea wouldn’t work.

Then we thought, “Honey doesn’t evaporate! Let’s do honey!” But then there happened to be a massive, mysterious bee die-off in America, and it was a terrible time to get into honey.

By then, we’d seen the numbers on water, and they were really good. So good that we said, “We can give a lot of the money away and still have enough to run a nonprofit business. Let’s just do normal bottles and give the money away.”

So we talked to our church, Circle of Hope, and asked if we could go in together. Of course Circle was up for it, because this is totally Matthew 25:35, service-oriented stuff. We decided to call the company Unda Water, found a bottler, and started talking to people about it.

What has the response been to Unda Water?
People love it. Nobody doesn’t love this no-brainer, win-win idea. We sell our water in Philadelphia for the same price that you’d pay for other brands of bottled water, and then give a quarter from the proceeds of each bottle sold to organizations that dig water wells in developing countries.

So where’s the money going?
Our first organization is called Kulanu. They work in North Africa on a variety of things, including well digging. Every bottle we sell provides one month of water to a person in Africa because the money is used that efficiently. One well can provide thousands of people with water.

And not just water, but also free time. Before you get a well dug near you, you have to spend your day getting water. For some, it takes hours of walking to get to a well and back home again. Once water is simple to get, people can do a pretty good job of helping themselves in other ways. Once they have time on their hands, kids can go to school, adults can start businesses, and everyone can think about something else besides how to stay alive for another day. This is such a solvable problem.

But what about all the plastic bottles leftover from after people have drunk their water?
I know! We’ve still got plastic problems. We have a plan, but we have to get there first. So in the meantime, we’re doing what we can do.

First, we run carbon neutral, which means we estimate our carbon output and give money to organizations that do things to offset that. So, all the carbon we generate by hiring delivery trucks and running electricity is offset by tree-planting.

Second, we’re very committed to local operations. Our bottler is in the region, we live here, and our customers are here too. That helps cut down on the waste and cost from shipping.

Finally, we’ve still got our eyes on a biodegradable bottle. We found a different biodegradable bottle that we like, but we need to significantly increase our production volumes before we can even get them to return our phone calls. We have to sell water to get there!

Where can I buy Unda Water water?
Right this second, the sure way to get it is at a Circle of Hope event, because we sell it there! We’re also negotiating with several fair trade coffee shops around Philadelphia. Like I said, everyone likes it. We just have to make sure the numbers add up so it’s worth everyone’s time.

Also, if you live in the Delaware Valley, go to your local coffee shop and ask for it. That really helps!

When are you going to expand beyond Philadelphia?
We’re not. We’re serious about keeping this local.

However, we would be happy to give our plans to anyone who’s interested, because this idea can be replicated in any place with a reasonable population density. We’d love to set up a network of Unda Waters to get the money flowing faster.

Any last words?
Thanks for letting me share, and I hope everybody will go check out our website at www.undawater.com for the latest news and retail locations.