Bottled water industry: analysis and review of a misinterpreted market

It is quite common nowadays to think that tap water and bottle water are two markets in competition, and that tap water represents a more sustainable business. The situation it is definitively different, it is been proved (Zenith International – Bottle Water in context 2009) in fact that tap water and bottle water are not direct competitors. Although, soft drinks industry represents the real substitute to tap or bottle water.
Analyze and evaluate the relationship between bottle water and tap water market is very complicate. The main issue consists in recognizing the key variables that make possible to compare the two markets. There are many sources related to both environment, but the sources are really hard to compare. Related to the bottle water market there are many books, sources and data available, mainly related to the sustainability of the production of bottle water:
• British Bottled Water Producers. ‘Water’s vital statistics: industry data’ - britishbottledwater.org/vitalstats.html
• Environmental Life Cycle Assessment - beveragelcafootprint.com
• International Bottled Water Association. ‘What is Bottled Water?’ - bottledwater.org/content/what-bottled-water
• Shiklomanov I et al (1999) ‘Total global saltwater and freshwater estimates’, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO, Paris)
• Water Wars (2002) - Vandana Shiva

The data available about the tap water context are split in two main segments. The scientific data come from the researches conducted by the bottle water producers, which invested on research projects. Often the bottle water companies analyze the mineral water and the tap water, and they publish the results. Otherwise, the sources that provide data about the tap water are mostly focus on the ethic\philosophic issue. As to be mentioned that it is generally believed that the level of sustainability is high, but many elements are not considered, such as: water dispersion in the pipes network and cost of maintenance. Tap water leakage in the UK currently stands at 4,372 million litres per day (Water UK, 2008), or 24.8% of total supply, which is twice the volume of annual bottled water consumption in Britain. (Zenith Report 2009)
All these elements have to be considered in order to calculate the ‘real’ level of sustainability.
In order to be able to write a dissertation about this topic it is important to find a balance between the different sources and be objective in the analysis.
The aim of this paper is to better define the actual relationship between tap and bottle water, explaining how much they are related each other and explain the main issues of both markets.