Here is the CEO of Nestle complaining about “extremist” NGOs who “bang on about” water being a “human right”. Nestle have tried pretty hard to wipe this video from the net.

25 comments

  2. Anyone else seen the Nestle funded ETH study concluding Sustainabiity in coffee supply chains is the responsibility of the grower not the buyer?

  5. The only reason they say its not is because its soon going to be a very valuable reasource.

    They want to monopolise and profit off it.

    But hey…got to be business friendly dont we?

  7. NGOs are generally bloodsuckers. Just think about: 1 single NGO promoter costs 45.- per hour without material. At trainstations, you often see group of 4 with one booth working for 8 hours.

    This is over 1900.- per day, per group inclusive travel expenses. So, having this group active begging 10 days for donations costs already 19’000.- without any administrative costs.

    What do you think how much of your donation will be diverted in the end to support your cause?

    While we sit here and discuss, China is already installing the most modern Chinese water treatment systems in Africa. While we in Switzerland still see Africa as the inferior continent full of hungry, dirt poor people – China is building business district after business district down there. Which creates massive economic opportunity.

    But Switzerland is creating useless discussion after useless discussion. Because, if China develops the continent of Africa and solves many humanitarian issues – there will be nothing left to do for NGOs. No hungry, sick, hungry people? No need dor NGOs!

  8. Imagine there’d be an initiative to hold swiss companies accountable for what they do abroad… Wait, there was one and we fricking rejected it?

  11. Boycott Nestlé that’s all we can do and what I will do..and take caution what is else a Nestlé product with another company name..

  13. There is enough water in this world but not enough cleam water and in many cases at the wrong place. The former CEO of Netslé means that there is a right to have access to clean water and as clean water comes with costs it should be treated as consumer good not as human right. The question is who is willing to offer clean water is there is no price for it: The states (paid by taxes) or private companies (paid by the prize of the consumergood) but let’s be clear….water is not free.

  15. > Following controversy on social media about these remarks, he stated that he does believe that water for basic hygiene and drinking is indeed a human right. He went on to say that his remarks were intended to address overconsumption by some while others suffered from lack of water and further that his remarks were taken out of context by the documentary.

    So, are the people commenting here the some ones who like to complain about ‘fake news’?

  17. Well, he is actually saying that there are two positions: water as a basic right and water as a good with a price. He is in favour of the second position (naturally) and then mentions that special solutions need to be found to grant people access to water who don’t have it (I assume that he means subsidies).

    In the end, the story is a little more difficult than most people think. Purifying water means that you have to build infrastructure (treatment plants, but also freshwater networks etc.), you need energy and know-how. The question is who finances that. Many governments in developing country are not capable of doing that (or are too corrupt). So what would your solution be in these cases?

    Water is abundant, yes. But treated water has value (again energy, infrastructure etc.) I get that many people don’t like private companies, but who should finance it then? Foreign governments? Private individuals?

  18. I’ll never get over the Konzernverantwortungsinitiative.

    Federalism has such anti-democratic features apparently created to protect minorities. Which minorities were protected here? Rich capitalists afraid of not keeping up their ridiculous wealth for no reason at all while people around the world suffer specifically because of them?

    Yeah fuck that. That’s no democratic feature I want to uphold.

  19. While he isn’t in the right, we should not be too quick to judge putting a market price on water. One of the reasons we’re running out of the stuff is because water is used by corporations as an near-free, publicly subsidized input into the production of goods. They should absolutely be paying some kind of price for it in order to better ration it (which will then of course have an impact on consumer prices). It’s not a meme-able situation really.

    None of this is to say Nestle should be the owner and supplier of water to the world.

  22. The commercial water theft business model Nestle built in the US is insane. They take advantage of old water rights laws developed for farmers, buying a small plot of land (like 3 sqm), building a commercial well head, and pumping water like mad until the small towns can change the laws, fighting with Nestle lawyers that have 1000x the resources. Totally insane.

  25. I think they’d violate some
    Part of the Geneva, since it refers to wares being the source of war and “questionable” wares, ie de, is in international crime. Well it’s a civil right, like if he goes to get water or s, and you try and stop him I think it’s his civil right to try and survive while being as polite as possible.

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