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Comment by piquadrat | Hacker News Reader

Can we stop this "Nestlé thinks water isn't a human right" BS already?

http://www.nestle.com/ask-nestle/human-rights/answers/nestle...

I'm far from being a fan of Nestlé, but there are better arguments against their conduct than a single quote from the CEO years ago, misquoted and out of context.

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That's fascinating. I've been boycotting Nestlé for many years based on documentaries and articles in German-language media. I've just tried to dig up some English articles for the first time, but they are much harder to find.

Compare the German-language version of Nestlé criticism on water:

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestlé#Trinkwasser

...to the English one:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestlé#Bottled_water

There was even a documentary on German public TV recently, pretty cheesy stuff, but starting at 32:49 the journalists are interviewing local politicians in Mexico about a Nestlé selling water from local reserves:

http://www.daserste.de/information/ratgeber-service/montagsc...

So while I can't translate all this content right now, the tl;dr is that in practise, Nestlé does not seem to believe in water as a human right. Otherwise, why sell water from areas where it is already scarce?

> Nestlé does not seem to believe in water as a human right. Otherwise, why sell water from areas where it is already scarce?

Selling is often the best way to manage scarce resources, particularly in the presence of a government that cannot be trusted to effectively ration them.

Most reasonable people don't object to companies selling food or clothing.

If by "manage" you mean "make sure the scarce resource goes to the highest bidder". That's not the same as maximizing overall happiness, because purchasing power ≠ capacity for happiness. In fact it's often the reverse. The person who can get the most happiness from a glass of water might be the least able to afford it.

Of course people object to companies selling food when it is scarce. Many reasonable people (governments included) are trying to stop the overfishing of the oceans or poaching of endangered animals.

Is there an example of a scarce resource that was better off being managed by company than a government?

One thing is that selling water from some place enables the source to be developed. E.g. enable better water treatment technology and eliminate losses. It may very well actually improve availability of water.

Sale of drinking water is not really much of a problem, anywhere; the amounts consumed by drinking are small compared to everything else, and the development of treatment capability may well offset them.

Selling water in bottles is a problem because of the bottles (trash, materials, energy), but that is another thing. Supplying water to other uses (industry, agriculture) is a problem because the amounts are vastly bigger than with drinking water.

To be honest, I trust the English Wikipedia here more than the German...

They do think it is their right to buy publicly owned municipality water and then sell it back to the public.

I mean with soda at least they are putting a few cents per gallon into it.

There should be a truth-in-advertising law they makes the bottle labels say "filtered publicly owned water $1".

In my opinion, the blaming is very one-sided. I mean what kind of municipality sells such rights to a private entity?

The one that believes in trickle down economics!

Aquafina (Pepsi) and Desani (Coke) bottled water are municipal tap water that has been filtered. The source of the water is usually on the label.

The UK sold all it's water companies a while back. It sort of worked out but the bills went up.

There should be a truth-in-advertising law

Aren't there? I'm sure I've seen the source of the water printed on the water bottles.

The location/font-size for the brand and the source need to be switched if it is just water.

Speaking of which, so we know some water sources but it is now legal to not mention food sources on many products.

In the video the CEO says roughly people should have a right to 50-100L of clean water but not the right to fill a swimming pool because there isn't always enough for everyone to do that, which seems not unreasonable.

Why exactly should I believe anything Nestlé's marketing department says?

No one is showing the clip of what he actually said, which is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWkA-uAPXCE#t=2m10s

He does absolutely say that "NGOs bang on about water being declared a human right", at the time when he is relaxed, and even bringing up some Austrian folk song about water. He says absolutely nothing about limits, or just being careful.

The page you linked is a great example of corporate damage control. I tend to trust what people say when they are being candid over what they say on a PR page.

That video cuts off right before Brabeck states his own view. Thanks for proving my point that his quote is often taken out of context. Here's a longer one

https://youtu.be/7iGj4GpAbTM?t=192

He states that he thinks it would be better to give water a price so that we are aware of its value, and take specific measures to provide access to water to people who can't afford it. Not the worst idea ever to fight water waste.

I doubt people in third-world countries are unaware of the value of clean water.

Oh come on. He is clearly referring to the problem of water being wasted as a valueless common good, mostly in the western world. And indeed, what is happening for instance in California right now can be seen as tragedy of commons problem (see e.g. http://legal-planet.org/2015/07/13/tragedy-of-the-commons-ca...)

But sure, if you need to confirm the BigCo CEO as incarnation of Satan, go ahead...

>valueless common good, mostly in the western world

I have to pay for tap water though.

>But sure, if you need to confirm the BigCo CEO as incarnation of Satan, go ahead...

You don't need Satan when you've got a BigCo CEO: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestle_boycott

> Oh come on.

As long as we are using this form of persuasion – come on, this is the company that is trying to say it has rights to collect water from Strawberry Canyon based on a claim from 1865 – http://www.desertsun.com/story/news/environment/2016/05/07/n...

How on earth can you think they are a socially responsible company committed to avoiding water wastage?

Thanks for linking a more complete video. However, I don't understand how the extra context absolves him. In fact, it shows more clearly that he is of the "put a price on everything" (implicit: and then we can sell it at that price) worldview.

Notice that he clearly calls water a "foodstuff" before talking about giving it a price. He then follows it up by saying "The biggest social responsibility of any CEO is to maintain and ensure the successful and profitable future of his enterprise".

Somehow I don't think water waste and access for needy people is particularly important to him. At minimum, I would at least say that he is mildly in opposition to access to clean drinking water being declared a fundamental right instead of a product to be sold. This makes perfect sense, because it would eliminate or heavily impact Nestlé's water business if every country in the world had clean drinking water.

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