words and thoughts about viva con agua and the zdf magazin royale
Basically, I think Jan Böhmermann is absolutely right about most of what he said on the show. We ourselves constantly cite the study that says that giving up mineral water would save more CO₂ than giving up domestic flights .
He also presents other problems that he addresses well. I think it is important that we in Germany finally make more of an effort to protect our water and, of course , to prevent (or at least slow down) the climate crisis !
Unfortunately, our partner Viva con Agua (we have been supporting VcA's drinking water projects for over 10 years) has also received a lot of criticism. I can understand the point that drinking Viva con Agua mineral water instead of Selters mineral water will of course not save the world . At the same time, there are big players in the water sector like Nestlé, Coca Cola or PepsiCo, which I find so much more problematic - why would they choose a small brand from Hamburg whose share of the mineral water market is negligible?
The criticisms are not really justified and are presented in a somewhat one-sided manner. Yes, Viva con Agua sells mineral water, but also says in many places that tap water is actually more ecological . If mineral water is absolutely necessary in certain situations, then they want to offer a social alternative in which the profits go to drinking water projects . And not one that simply makes corporations richer. That makes sense to me, even if I naturally wish Viva con Agua would do more for tap water and not just so that we can sell more soulbottles. ;-)
Speaking of selling soulbottles: The donation does not go to Viva con Agua Wasser GmbH, which markets the mineral water, but to the non-profit organization Viva con Agua de Sankt Pauli eV , which uses it to support drinking water projects (to be precise: our joint project WASH'n'soul in Zambia ). But I understand that it seems confusing at first glance. Viva con Agua now has a lot of organizations belonging to it. But they also do a lot of different things and have been doing so for 15 years. In my opinion, it's actually quite natural that there are different legal forms, I think it's presented very transparently and clearly here .
If you are interested in the details, you can find Viva con Agua’s statement here and Benny Adrion’s answers to the questions in Stern here .
We are happy to have been a partner of Viva con Agua for over 10 years now and hope to implement many more great projects together.
