Executive Summary

Over the past several decades, the bottled water market in North America has experienced significant growth. Between 2002 and 2007 alone, the typical American’s bottled water consumption rose by nearly 50% and has grown by more than 20-fold since 1977.[1] Concern has arisen that this growth, while meeting a consumer demand for health and convenience, may come with an added burden on the environment.  Today, bottled water is a visible and ubiquitous consumer product and—given society’s increasing environmental awareness—has become a charged symbol in the sustainability dialogue. As consumers have taken a larger interest in reducing the impacts of their lifestyles on the environment, some now believe that bottled water is environmentally inefficient, given a comparison to tap water which is readily available throughout the developed world. Campaigns have been launched to discourage the drinking of bottled water, retail outlets looking to have an environmentally friendly image have tried to steer consumers away from it, and a small number of municipalities have even contemplated banning its purchase for public functions.

Nestlé Waters North America (NWNA), the market leader in North America, has commissioned the present project to better understand the environmental aspects of bottled water and available alternatives, and to explore ways to further reduce its own footprint. The intentions of the project are to 1) identify and compare the environmental impacts of consuming bottled water and several prominent alternatives; and 2) identify the environmental impacts of a consumer’s total beverage consumption and evaluating the influence of changing bottled water consumption habits. The methodology applied here, life cycle assessment (LCA), is an internationally accepted method for measuring the environmental impact of products, services and other systems. It includes a comprehensive scope, which ensures that environmental impacts are not simply being shifted to other parts of a system’s life cycle or to other environmental impact categories. This study has been peer-reviewed by an independent panel of LCA experts.

The bottled water alternatives that have been compared in high detail in this study include two NWNA products: a 500 ml “EcoShape” bottle[2] and a 3 liter bottle, as well as sports drinks, vitamin-fortified waters, water directly from a tap, tap water from a filtering pitcher, water from a water vending machine, and tap water in three reusable bottle material types (aluminum, plastic and steel). Comparisons are also made of the environmental impact of a consumer’s total daily consumption (limited to three impact categories of water use, non-renewable energy use, and climate change impact), drawing on information produced elsewhere to include milk, coffee, beer, wine, juice, soda, and tea.[3] An overview comparison of the impacts associated with each of these beverages is provided in Figure A-1 below.

Figure A-1: Comparison of climate change impact, non-renewable energy use, and water use for a variety of beverage options (* indicates results from the present study; ** indicates results from public pre-existing sources, with the exception of iced tea, which is not publicly available).

Results of the climate change impact comparison of products are shown in the below figures. Based on the baseline set of conditions used here, those systems based on consumption of tap water generally perform better from an environmental perspective than the bottled beverages. However, there is significant variation within the categories of bottled and tap water examined and sensitivity results show potential for wide variation within each of these categories. The conclusions drawn are therefore subject to the conditions of consumer use and the specifics of beverage packaging and distribution. It is therefore essential to consider the conditions of consumer behavior when comparing these systems and to qualify conclusions based on the range of behaviors or other conditions under which they are applicable. Additionally, there are potentially both health and quality implications associated with bottled water alternatives, although these are outside the scope of this report.

Figure A-2: Overview of results for climate change score of the various drinking water alternatives. Results are representative of other impact categories examined.

Within the bottled beverages considered, there is significant variation, with the two NWNA products examined—the EcoShape 500 ml water bottle and the 3 L bottle—performing roughly equivalently and significantly better than the sports drinks and vitamin-fortified waters. While some of this difference is due to the additives to these other beverages and is therefore inherent in the product categories, the largest portion of the difference is due to differences in packaging weight. Indeed, the majority of the environmental benefit shown here for bottled waters versus other bottled beverages hinges on the assumption of a lower weight of PET bottle, which is supported by the market research performed to support the present assessment. The influence of distribution distance is also shown to be important, but insufficient information is available to draw conclusions comparing beverage categories on this basis.

A range of sensitivity tests has been performed to identify the potential influence on the results of numerous assumptions that are unknown and/or variable with regard to consumption of tap and bottled water. Examples include the thickness of plastic bottles, distances products are transported, the number of times reusable bottles are used, the conditions of dishwashing and refrigeration, and many others. It is shown that variation in such factors lead to a very wide range in the environmental impact of water consumption. An assessment of reasonable upper and lower bounds based on these ranges of values shows that choice between bottled and tap categories is just one of a large number of consumer choices and actions that affect the environmental impact of water consumption and that other choices and behaviors can be as or more important. For both bottled and tap water, impact of consumption may vary by more than 10-fold among various options and behavior patterns. This indicates that it is necessary to communicate to consumers more information than just a comparison of bottled and tap options when seeking to assist them in making good environmental choices regarding their water/beverage consumption.

Figure A-3: Proportion of beverages by volume consumed by the typical American consumer and percent contribution to the climate change impact from beverage consumption. Beverages with a disproportionately large contribution to beverage consumption impact relative to volume and shown with red lines and those with a smaller impact are shown with green lines.

When examining the total beverage consumption impact of the typical American consumer, it is shown that the contribution of beverage types to a consumer’s total impact may be quite different than their contribution to the volume consumed. For example, consumption of water of all types (both bottled and tap) provides 41% of beverage consumption, while producing only 12% of the associated impact on climate change. In comparison, the combination of milk, coffee, beer, wine and juice provide just 28% of the volume of beverages consumed but are associated with 58% of the climate change impact. These observations show that it is essential to consider the full scope of beverage consumption when considering impacts of any given product, as increases in consumption of one product are likely to result in the decrease of another product and vice-versa. In considering switching beverages, there are both health-related and environmental considerations that should be considered, and the present project examines only the environmental aspects.

Surveys of consumers regarding their preferred alternative to bottled water in cases where it is not available were used as a basis to consider scenarios of increasing or decreasing consumption of bottled water. This information suggests that approximately 30% of bottled water drinkers will chose tap water when bottled is not available and the remainder will prefer another type of bottled beverage.[4]

Figure A-4: Overview of results for climate change score of the various beverage consumption patterns. Results are generally representative of other impact categories examined.

The results from assessing changes under these conditions (Figure A-4) show that the unavailability of bottled water is unlikely to result in a net decrease in the environmental impacts of the consumer when considering the range of options that they are likely to switch to. Conversely, similar consideration of cases where consumers drink more bottled water—and therefore less of other beverages—shows a potential for reducing the total environmental impact associated with providing a consumer’s beverage consumption. For example, increasing bottled water consumption to 1.5 L per day results in a decrease of approximately 9% in the climate change impact of the average consumer’s beverage consumption. An assessment was also made of the case where a consumer switches their consumption of bottled to tap water, resulting in a decrease of the impacts of that consumer’s beverage consumption by approximately 4%. Results of these scenarios regarding consumer switch cannot be considered statistically significant, but are illustrative of the importance to consider the full influence of shifts away from bottled water if they happen in a way that moves consumption to other bottled beverages, as may be expected based on the market research.

The results indicate that if bottled water is removed from consumer choice – and consumers remain free to choose among remaining alternatives based on their preference – it is unlikely that any environmental benefit will result. These results have important implications for methods of communicating with and guiding consumers, retailers and public officials in making beverage consumption choices that will reduce their impact on the environment. Combined with the results regarding the variability of direct product comparisons, they indicate that communications to consumers on choice of beverage consumption must be rich enough in information to convey a full understanding of the importance of both their choice of beverage, as well as their habits in consuming the beverage.

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[2] In 2009-2010, Nestlé Waters North America has introduced a further reduced-weight “EcoShape 2” bottled, weighing an average of 9.85 g, compared with its previously produced “EcoShape 1” bottle with an average weight of 12.2 g. For the present project, the “EcoShape” bottle that is considered is the newer, lower weight bottle.

[3] Conclusions drawn on information from other sources (i.e., regarding milk, coffee, beer, wine, tea, soda and juice) cannot be made with the same certainty as for the beverage types directly studied here (bottled and tap waters, vitamin-fortified waters and sports drinks) due to a potential for inconsistencies in methodology, some of which are not fully documented in the pre-existing sources.

[4] Based on research performed for NWNA, as cited in the full report.