Shelf Life: Water for Africa with new Chivas venture.
Cheryl Hunter (shelflife at marklives.com)’s weekly pick of all things new — product, packaging, design, insight, food, décor and more!
I-Drop Water in Chivas Venture Gaia gets Inhouse overhaul Woolworths — a decade of doing good Water from whisky South Africa has experienced severe water shortages, with almost 2m people having no access to a reliable water supply between 2011 and 2015.
Social entrepreneur, James Steere, has created I-Drop Water, a for-profit social enterprise that designs, builds and installs drinking-water purification and dispensing machines in grocery stores at no cost, sharing income generated from water sales with store owners.
i-Drop Water has installed purification and dispensing units in over 55 locations in South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe, helping shop owners save almost 995 000l of water and over 1 300kg of plastic waste — an achievement that saw the company announced as the winner of the South African version of Chivas Regal’s The Venture III.
Says Steere: “Everywhere I have travelled in Africa, there is bottled water for sale in grocery stores at an exorbitant price.
And yet, in many of these grocery stores, there is a water supply; what is missing is a way of purifying water on site.
“We are extremely proud that our business is born in Africa and has potential to impact millions of people around the world as water shortage is a fast growing global crisis.” Inhouse inside Gaia Infrastructure investment company, Gaia, recently commissioned interior design firm, Inhouse Brand Architects, to create its new Cape Town office space, resulting in a design that is meant to perfectly complement the challenging and unusual architectural space.
Winning with Woolworths Woolworths’ flagship South African sustainability programme, the Good Business Journey (GBJ), turns 10 this year, celebrating its achievements in transformation, social development, health and wellness, ethical sourcing, sustainable farming, waste, water and energy.
Notify us of yours at shelflife at marklives dot com.