Nestle's Ethical Choices

A 20-month investigation was conducted by the state of California and it was concluded that Nestle did not have the right to take the amount of water that they were from the forest in California. Nestle pulls dozens of millions of gallons of water from the west branch of strawberry creek in California. I’ve attached a link below to a video that explains the effect of the water being taken.  Water Pipeline System Nestle directly disputed this claim in a 160-page written response to the state and mentioned that they have the “rights to take at least 88 million gallons each year…”. This dispute was based on a contract made in 1909. What shocked me about this dispute is that the court decided that Nestle can continue taking water from the forest because of a license renewal request Nestle made in 1987. I think that Nestle has handled this issue very poorly, and has taken a very corporate money-influenced approach to handle this situation. Basing their choices off of contracts ma...

Nestlé began in Switzerland in the mid-1860s when founder Henri Nestlé created one of the first baby formulas, Farine Lactée. It was a carefully formulated mixture of cow's milk, flour, and sugar, and was first used on a premature baby who could not tolerate his mother's milk or other alternative products. It saved his life and within a few years, the first Nestlé product was marketed in Europe.   The Nestlé Company was purchased by Jules Monnerat in 1874 and developed its own condensed milk to compete with the Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Company. The two companies merged in 1905 and Nestlé had factories in the United States, Britain, Spain and Germany. The start of World War I made it difficult for Nestlé to buy raw ingredients and distribute products. Nestlé purchased several factories in the U.S. to keep up with the increasing demand for condensed milk and dairy products, but when fresh milk became available again after the war, Nestlé suffered and slipped into debt...

Bottled water began in Europe in the 1970s as a symbol of status and health. After the industrial revolution, tap water gained its reputation for being unsafe for consumption. Since it gained rapid success in the late 90s, it has become a household good and is the fastest-selling non-alcoholic beverage to this day worldwide. The average American goes through over 10 bottles of water every month. That makes an average of over 50 billion bottles purchased annually in just the U.S. alone. Not many, however, give much consideration to where this water is being sourced from.  Marketers and advertisers began promoting bottled water as a symbol of status and health. Multinational companies began extracting water from aquifers and springs and selling it at a competitive price. Aside from the damage plastic pollution has caused to the environment which is very widely talked about, another major destructive impact that bottled water has caused is the damage to the communities in wh...