Timberland CEO Struggles with Company Ban on Bottled Water

Timberland CEO Jeffrey Swartz announced a new ban on bottled water at his company headquarters around the world two weeks ago, thinking it would be fairly easy to implement. After all, what’s so tough about using filtered tap water or other alternatives and passing on expensive deliveries of bottled water? As it turns out, according to Swartz – plenty.

He was psyched about implementing the new ban, until he started running into some obstacles:

First there’s a supply issue to contend with – our facilities team reports a 4-week supply of bottled water already in house and we don’t want to be wasteful, so can we continue to offer it until the supply runs out?  Sure, okay … makes sense.  Then the vending machine folks chime in, what about the plastic soda bottles in the vending machines?  Are we getting rid of those, too?  Wow.  Okay, sure.  No more plastic bottles in the vending machines.  But hold on, says the guy in charge of our dining services – we don’t have nearly enough glasses and cups to accommodate the increased demand from people who would otherwise be drinking bottled water.  We’re gonna have to add more dishwashers, or buy more glasses … yikes.  All I wanted to do was get rid of the bottled water, now I’m buying new dishwashers?  How come it’s never as easy as you think it will be to get something done?

Apparently Swartz also received feedback from readers of the Earthkeepers blog about whether banning bottled water was even necessary in the first place, with people arguing that bottled water has its place and that getting rid of it wasn’t going to negate Timberland’s carbon footprint.

Swartz understands that – but, as he says on Earthkeepers, “I hold on to the notion that in the corporate world, where tap water is clean and reuseable containers are (soon to be) plentiful, we can do better than bottled water.”

That’s a great attitude to have, and we applaud Swartz and Timberland for going through the trouble to address these kinds of issues in the workplace. Their next step? Getting rid of paper products.

Link [Earthkeepers] via [GreenBiz.com]

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