Design and Technology: Volvic Mineral Water Company - Case Study Example

Design and Technology: Volvic Mineral Water Company Sustainability Sustainability is not a new concept but nevertheless has significant importance for organisational longevity and existence. Sustainability has both environmental and humanitarian implications, which is why it has an imperative role in todays world. The concept is pervasive and intrinsically linked with a complex array of agendas for organisations to consider. It is no longer a choice but a necessity for ethically responsible companies to recognise it as a business challenge to integrate sustainability design into their management strategies. The rationale is that business strategy with sustainability design at the end of the day accomplishes a win-win situation: organisation sustains their operational resources; consumers become loyal to their products. Drinking water is one such resource in the world today which requires protection so that more people can have access to it. Billions of people in the developing and under-developed countries struggle to have safe drinking water supply. Those privileged and people of developed countries on the other hand have the option of bottled water for drinking. The problem with water consumption is that many people do not have access to untreated ground water fit for drinking. Those who have bottled water again are not consuming fresh water because water in plastic bottles is contains artificial minerals and packaged in bottles made of toxic material such as PET. Despite advance technologies and claims to purity, bottled water companies are short of providing access to fresh drinking water to the consumer. In the following case study, the researcher shall present the concept of sustainability and how it impacts organisations. The purpose is to evaluate how sustainability design in corporate strategy is significant for the progress of Volvic, a bottled water company, and to create a win-win situation for all. Volvic Mineral Water Company Volvic is a major international bottled water brand created since 1958. The Volvic Company has expanded and have bases in Germany, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand and UK and Ireland. Today, the company produces over billion water bottles with shipment to over 60 countries across the globe. The Volvic brand is made up of flavoured and natural mineral water which are sourced from Volvic volcano, the largest chain of volcanoes in France. Volvic water is derived from six layer of volcanic rock filter and therefore has high mineral composition. In 1993, Volvic has been bought by the Danone Group (Volvic Website, 2011). Danone is a multi-million dollar business which has its origin in Glaces de Boussois and Verriere Souchon-Neuvesel, who formed a hollowed glass bottle-making company. Since its inception in 1966, the partners have merged to capitalise on the trend of disposable glass bottles, and eventually in 1980 merged with Gervais Danone, changing from a mere glass bottle maker to a container food industry. Danone ever since has acquired several times and its products evolved significantly to become one of the largest consumer brands in the West today, of which Volvic is one (Danone Website 2011). Throughout its history, Volvic has boasted of high sustainability and has made progress towards lowering its carbon footprints on the environment by reducing its plastic packaging by 30%, and recycling 100% of PET for its bottles. Volvic sustainability is derived from its parent companys sustainability philosophy of achieving health strategy based on benefits of hydration for all by making natural water affordable and accessible (Danone Website, 2011). With an already established infrastructure for sustainability built over the years, Volvic, based on its parent companys vision to "create economic value while creating social value", is an ideal case for designing sustainability. The company’s business outlook rests upon the vision that business is surrounded and built upon society; so if Volvic wants to increase its performance, it will have to build the society, which supports it, capable of consumption. With its corporate strategy embedded in the food cycle, this would be a good opportunity for Volvic to develop a sustainability model in its future business strategy. Sustainability of Bottled Water Sustainability refers to "the doctrine that economic growth and development must take place, and be maintained over time, within the limits set by ecology in the broadest sense - by the interrelations of human beings and their works, and the biosphere...." according to William Ruckelshaus (quoted in Williams, 2007). Since businesses operate in this ecological environment, its challenge is to develop a sustainable business design to incorporate and meet local needs as well as biosphere needs. According to Williams (2007), to design for sustainability, it is helpful to understand the process of nature and create sustainability designs to fit and connect with the ecological system. The organisation therefore acts as the machine for the living rather than as a separate entity. Sustainable designs therefore are system designs, and they should serve the economic, social, and environmental needs as a single system. The factors that should be taken into consideration include sensitivity to environment, economic value, costs for returns and future prospects in the community (Williams 2007). To find possible sustainable opportunity in bottled drinking water for Volvic, one needs to understand its system, and how it is related to the environment. Drinking water users can be categorised into three segments: Large metropolises of industrial countries which rely on hydraulics to generate potable water for drinking and other uses. Cities of developing countries whose population are connected to inconsistent supply of drinking water due to unsustainable water system. Developed countries with moderate water scarcity but due to demographic congestion and universal policies, water prices are high (Barraque in Coutard et al 2005). Despite huge demand, drinking water continues to be short in supply due to the inefficient supply system, and the inadequate treatment technologies used by water production companies. Contaminants pollute the end product while the chemicals used have long-term effect on the human immune system. Whether, users are from Bangladesh or Canada or France, all of them face the same problem with the global water system (Chhetri and Islam, 2008). As a result, of all the natural resources, water has become one of the most precious for mans survival. The problem is inherent not in the amount of water but the quality and distribution network of drinking water according to McLennan (2004). Determining sustainability can be achieved through Life Cycle Analysis (LCA), the process of which can be plotted as follows: Resource extraction > Manufacturing > On-site construction > Occupancy/maintenance > Demolition > Recycling/reuse/disposal Through LCA process, one can investigate the impact of material or system on life stages in the biosphere. One of the key points is to consider is that resources are extracted through renewable methods so that it remains renewable (McLennan 2004). Moreover, at a larger dimension, sustainable development has to be environmentally balanced and socially uplifting writes Riddell (2004). Progressive improvement must be pervasive and for overall human conditions rather than business operational viability alone. Hence, a sustainable system is one which emphasizes on material growth, retention, habitat equilibrium and social well-being. Volvic, based on the Danone’s sustainability model, has followed a comprehensive sustainable management policy to protect natural resources, sustain purity of content, develop lasting relationship with local people, create awareness, and protection of the local community - all within the framework of the geological and hydrogeological system (Hofer, 2010). However, thus far Volvic has emphasised on the value of bottled water as private goods. Private goods are ones that has private property rights which means the buyer and seller has exclusive rights to its price, demand and supply. But private goods are being acquired at the cost of public goods. To achieve complete sustainability, the same principle of valuing and setting price to private goods should be applied to public goods as well (Pretty 2007). Since most sellers of bottled water have been following the principle of private goods, by protecting their resource and ensuring they remain within their protection, opportunity exists for Volvic to exploit the public goods arena and making bottled water an open-access phenomenon (Pretty 2007). Sustainable Design for Volvic Throughout history, cultures and civilisation have been known to collapse due to degradation of societies, destruction of habitat, loss of soil fertility, water management problems, over hunting, over population and degradation of native species. These indications should alert people to the coming catastrophes. If major changes in attitude, awareness, and actions are not made today, the future of non-renewable and renewable resources are at peril (Rankin and Rankin 2011). Before, Volvics sustainability can be designed, the question that must be answered is - what do we want to sustain. Sustainability may mean organisational longevity, ecological conservation, or sustenance of renewable and non-renewable resources, or a combination of all of them as in the case of Volvic. For a company like Volvic which already has a sustainability infrastructure, designing a sustainable business model means to use this infrastructure to achieve the above three elements of sustainability (Chick and Micklethwaite, 2011). They can be broken up into the following constituents for sustainable development: Making drinking water public goods - Instead of concentrating business objectives on bottled water for the individual, the new direction should be accessibility of drinking water for all. The aim should be to focus on creating business value by producing public goods rather than private goods. Integrating this aspect into the business strategy would enable Volvic to identify new opportunities for distribution, larger consumer base, and opportunities to market goods in a more sustainable manner. Ecological conservation - Until now, Volvic has been concentrating on protection of its ground water source as a Volvic property even though this strategy has been carried out in conjunction with the ecological system. However, now it will need to develop a new strategy in which the protection of ground water should not be limited to Volvic mineral water source but extend to other ground water sources as well. This would mean sustainable development in conservation techniques, technologies, and awareness building. Renewable resources – Volvic’s future approach should be social innovation in which both the company and its consumers are co-participants in the sustainability act. Since the outcome would benefit both the users and the company, there is an expectation of responsibility on both the participants. This would increase the value of water consumed and encourage conservation in the long run (Chick and Micklethwaite, 2011). Win-win Situation The proposed sustainability model for Volvic is embedded in the sustainable living concept in which the life cycle of ecology, resource and people become intrinsically linked through Volvic. By redefining the causal relationship between the product and its consumers, the problem of restoring social and ecological order can be achieved especially where potable drinking water and its accessibility is concerned. Turning the concept of accessible drinking water around, for the company would mean ethical and responsible business philosophy to earn loyalty from consumers and sustain consumer base. But what is the most important aspect in this model is that it would open up more opportunities for Volvic to sustain its business in the future in the form of increasing consumer base, better options for product development and increasing market. By making Volvic integrated into the life cycle, the company would establish itself as a necessity rather than a luxury, in countries developed, developing or under-developed (Vezzoli and Manzini 2008). What this design means for Volvic is that it will have to take into account of the product design, technology, policies, and production impact. To implement sustainability in its production, Volvic would have to design work processes, to minimise material and energy consumption, select processes which consume less resources, concentrate on eco-friendly production processes, designing products which would increase public goods value, and discourage private goods value (such as bottled water). By facilitating awareness, encouragement and distribution of quality drinking water which is safe and healthy, Volvic would create both well-being and value of its product to the ecological, social and business system for future generations. References Barraque, B. (2005) "Not too much but not too little: the sustainability of urban water services in New York, Paris and New Delhi in sustaining urban networks: the social diffusion of large technical systems" in Coutard, O., Hanley, R.E., Zimmerman, R. (2005) Sustaining urban networks: the social diffusion of large technical systems. Routledge Chhetri, A.B. and Islam, R. (2008) Inherently-sustainable technology development. Nova Publishers. Chick, A. and Micklethwaite, P. (2011) Design for Sustainable Change: How Design and Designers Can Drive the Sustainability Agenda. AVA Publishing. Danone website Online accessed on 26 November 2011 from: http://www.danone.com/en/company/history.html Hofer, R. (2010) Sustainable Solutions for Modern Economies. Royal Society of Chemistry. McLennan, J.F. (2004) The philosophy of sustainable design: the future of architecture. Ecotone Publishing. Pretty, J.N. (2007) The SAGE handbook of environment and society. SAGE. Rankin, R. and Rankin, W.J. (2011) Minerals, Metals and Sustainability: Meeting Future Material Needs. Csiro Publishing. Riddell, R. (2004) Sustainable urban planning: tipping the balance. Wiley-Blackwell. Vezzoli, C. and Manzini, E. (2008) Design for environmental sustainability. Springer. Volvic Website, Online accessed on 26 November 2011 from: http://www.volvic-na.com/companyinfo/aboutus.html Williams, D. E. (2007) Sustainable design: ecology, architecture, and planning. John Wiley and Sons. Read More