Ethos water is a subsidiary of Starbucks Corp. Starbucks sells Ethos water in all of their stores and are now working on deals to sell water in grocery stores as well.
According to Starbucks, Ethos Water is a brand with a social mission—helping children around the world get clean water and raising awareness of the World Water Crisis. This is a very noble cause. However, they donate just 5 cents for every bottle sold to the cause. Starbucks does not release financials for Ethos, but 5 cents is a minuscule percentage of the profits (each bottle costs $1.70). Ethos water is primarily a Profit Making Business (PMB) which donates a small percentage of its profits to charity.
Starbucks could do great things with Ethos water and develop it into a true social business. They can continue selling the water at current rates in the developed economies, and plough most of the profits into
1) Subsidizing the cost of drinking water in developing economies (a no profit no loss operation). Make drinking water accessible at a very low cost.
2) Providing free drinking water in the poorest parts of the world (operate like a traditional non-profit)
They are not about to do that anytime soon, are they?
I would rather buy other bottled water brands (A bottle of Arrowhead costs less than $1 ) for a lower cost and then donate the difference ( a lot more than the 5 cents that Ethos donates) to non-profits.
