Notice Post < Previous | Next >
Peter Kratochvil
Outrageous! Nestle’s CEO on water profiteering in California: “If I could increase it, I would”
If you were the CEO of a company that was caught doing something really bad, would you admit that you wish you could do even more of it? Because that’s what Nestle’s CEO just did.
Recently, nearly 200,000 CREDO activists joined together to tell the U.S Forest Service to stop Nestle from pumping water out of a national forest in drought-stricken California. That helped put a spotlight on Nestle and launched a round of intense media scrutiny. But instead of deciding to do the right thing, as other companies like Starbucks1 have done in the face of the drought, Nestle’s CEO decided to dig in and double down. When questioned in a recent radio interview about whether they would consider halting their water extraction, Nestle CEO Tim Brown stated: “Absolutely not. In fact, if I could increase it, I would.”2
Apparently, Nestle’s CEO has spent so much time focusing on driving up Nestle’s profits at any cost that he’s apparently lost any sense of corporate responsibility when it comes to bottling water. So this time we need to up the pressure even more by sending a message directly to Nestle.
Unfortunately, Brown’s out-of-touch comments didn’t end there. In the same interview, he went so far as to blame consumers for Nestle’s practices, at one point stating, “If I stop bottling water tomorrow, people would buy another brand of bottled water...It’s driven by consumer demand, it’s driven by an on-the-go society that needs to hydrate.” Apparently he’s never heard of a re-usable water bottle.
Perhaps it’s not a complete surprise to see Nestle respond in such a tone-deaf manner by passing the buck and shirking responsibility. After all, this is the same corporation whose CEO once famously challenged the human right to water. During that same year, Nestle fought a decision by the Ministry of the Environment in Ontario, Canada that would limit its water-taking in times of severe drought.3
Nestle won’t end its extreme and irresponsible profiteering without a fight. It’s time to ratchet up the spotlight on Nestle itself and show that we won’t stand by while its CEO tries to spin his way out of his company’s inexcusable water profiteering.
Thank you for your activism.
Elijah Zarlin, Campaign Manager
CREDO Action from Working Assets
Add your name:
| SIGN THE PETITION |