Fiji Water? NO THANK YOU!

In the wake of last year's very public Fiji Water v. Mother Jones fight (see Mother Jones Bashes Fiji Water followed by Fiji Water Responds and then read the first comment under Fiji's response posted by Clara Jeffery) I stopped drinking Fiji Water. Fiji Water then increased their "Every Drop is Green" campaign.

This unbiased video of the Democracy Now interview with Anna Lenzer, investigative journalist and author of the above referenced Mother Jones article "Spin the Bottle", gives a great summary of the controversy for those that want to skip the reading. Fiji Water was invited to be interviewed as well but declined. There is also factual commentary on other brands of bottled water.

Now, some might say "Hey Girly, this is old news!" Obviously I know this and so should you since the first thing I said was that this controversy occurred last year! So why am I bringing this up again?
 As part of the damage control after the Mother Jones expose Fiji Water increased it's efforts to make contributions to society. It's no coincidence that shortly after it was made known to the public/consumers that just miles away from the bottling plant in Fiji there were communities without clean water, Fiji Water donated the means to install water filters in these local communities by partnering with another organization. Would they have done this had the public eye not been upon them? I don't believe they would.
Fiji Water's blog, started in 2008, commences with a green focus but mostly gravitates towards topics that interest their target market and can be linked with their brand. Pre-controversy the posts read like something off of The New York Post's Page 6 - it's a who's who of who's drinking Fiji Water against a backdrop of food, wine, fashion, music, politics, sports, and A-list events. It's not until after the controversy that Fiji Water seems to come back with unprecedented fervor and a change in tone that moves away from sporadic what you can do as an individual towards what Fiji Water is doing for the communities of Fiji and beyond.
Recently, Fiji Water has donated 136,000 liters of water to victims of the earthquake in Haiti and I'm sure that they are going to make sure every one knows. What you might be surprised to learn is that one month ago Fiji was struck by Cyclone Mick. Although the effects of Cyclone Mick weren't nearly as devastatingly grande as the effects of Haiti's earthquake the disaster costs total almost 39 million USD raising the total amount of natural disaster costs for the year to an excess of 200 million USD, due to earlier flooding, according to the Fiji Times Online. Fiji Water, who claims to be investmented in the well-being of the Fijian community, made no mention of the natural disaster on their blog and it appears that they also failed to make any contribution to relief efforts. They have not donated water or helped to restore electricity to the nearly 50,000 Fijians effected by the cyclone.
Is it too pessimistic to think that Fiji Water ignored the Fijian community in the wake of Cyclone Mick because the event failed to make national headlines?

So when you hear that Fiji Water has done something positive in the world, just remember to take it with a grain of salt and ask yourself why this cause and why now.