WaterHealth International (WHI) is an American multinational company based in the city of Irvine ( California ). Created on the principle of social entrepreneurship to provide drinking water to rural and urban areas with low incomes. WaterHealth International purifies and retails water through its WaterHealth Center network of small modular enterprises. As of 2013, about 500 such enterprises daily cleaned about 1.4 million liters of drinking water for 5 million of their customers. In the villages of the WaterHealth Center, they receive untreated water mainly from municipal authorities (about 70% are groundwater , the rest is surface water ) [2] [3] .
| Waterhealth international | |
|---|---|
| Type of | Private company |
| Base | 1995 year |
| Location | Irvine  USA |
| Products | Drinking water under the brand name Dr. Water [1] |
| Site | waterhealth.com |
Investors at WaterHealth International are International Finance Corporation , Acumen , private equity firms Dow Venture Capital , Sail Venture Partners , Plebys International and Tata Capital Innovations Fund . The company uses low-cost treatment plants developed at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory after the 1993 cholera epidemic in India , Bangladesh and Thailand . They use ultraviolet radiation to destroy harmful pathogens and microbes in contaminated water, and through reverse osmosis, they clean water from impurities [2] [4] [5] [6] . Most Indian WHI centers are ISO 9001: 2008 certified [7] .
Among WHI's main partners in various projects to provide people with drinking water are the American The Coca-Cola Company and the British Diageo (including its Guinness beer division) [8] [9] [10] .
Content
History
The company was founded in 1995 and initially worked with experimental water treatment plants in Mexico and the Philippines . In 2002, the company was restructured and in 2003, through a joint venture between WaterHealth Philippines and Bendix Sales Corporation, it entered the retail drinking water market. In 2006, WaterHealth International entered the vast Indian market, having built its first treatment centers in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh , in 2008 established its first African branch in Ghana , and by 2011 expanded its geography of operations in the Indian states of Gujarat and Karnataka . Since 2012, the headquarters of WHI is located in California [11] .
The customer base of WaterHealth International has grown from 1.5 million people in 2008 to 5 million people in 2012. WaterHealth Center distributes on average more than 700 million liters of water annually. As of 2013, of the 500 centers, more than 400 were located in India, more than 90% of the centers were located in rural areas. The company hires local residents with low incomes for the construction and maintenance of centers, as well as for the distribution of drinking water among residents of the surrounding territories [11] .
In 2014, WaterHealth International and The Coca-Cola Company launched a joint program to provide 1 million children through two hundred schools in developing countries with clean drinking water. In addition, both companies launched the educational campaign on the importance of clean drinking water, and Coca-Cola became a minority shareholder of WHI. Also in 2014, WaterHealth International founded the Jaldhaara Foundation in Hyderabad to educate people about the importance of clean drinking water and to engage women in the management of treatment centers [12] [13] .
Geography of activity
WaterHealth International operates in India , Bangladesh , Nigeria , Liberia , Ghana and the Philippines . The largest WHI market is India, where the company operates through a 100% branch of WaterHealth India Private Limited. In Bangladesh, the company operates through AK Khan WaterHealth Bangladesh Limited, a joint venture between AK Khan Group (a large private conglomerate headquartered in Chittagong ), International Finance Corporation and WaterHealth International. In West Africa , WHI has 100% branches in each country [11] [14] [15] [16] .
WaterHealth International, along with the Coca Cola Africa Foundation ( The Coca-Cola Company African Foundation), Diageo and the International Finance Corporation, is a member of the Safe Water for Africa Initiative, which aims to provide clean drinking water to poor African communities [11] .
Notes
- ↑ Dr. Water Changes Lives in Andhra Pradesh (inaccessible link) . Global Partnership on Output-Based Aid (GPOBA). Date of treatment April 28, 2015. Archived January 12, 2015.
- ↑ 1 2 Q&A: A Drinking Water 'Game Changer' . The Wall Street Journal. Date of treatment April 28, 2015.
- ↑ Company Overview of WaterHealth International, Inc. (eng.) . Bloomberg. Date of treatment April 28, 2015.
- ↑ Start-Ups - WaterHealth International Inc. (eng.) . Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Date of treatment April 28, 2015.
- ↑ Acumen Fund and WaterHealth International: The Role of Venture Philanthropy . Stanford Graduate School of Business. Date of treatment April 28, 2015.
- ↑ Dow Venture Capital Invests in WaterHealth International . PR Newswire Association LLC. Date of treatment April 28, 2015.
- ↑ WaterHealth gets ISO certification . The Hindu Business Line. Date of treatment April 28, 2015.
- ↑ Coca-Cola, Diageo and WaterHealth International launch innovative water partnership in Africa . Date of treatment April 28, 2015.
- ↑ Safe Water for Africa (SWA ) . Date of treatment April 28, 2015.
- ↑ Guinness commissions a $ 70,000 WaterHealth Center for Zenu Ashiaman (inaccessible link) . Myjoyonline.com. Date of treatment April 28, 2015. Archived January 2, 2012.
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 WaterHealth International, Inc. (WHI) IFC Date of treatment April 28, 2015.
- ↑ Jaldhaara Foundation launched at Hyderabad . The Times of India. Date of treatment April 28, 2015.
- ↑ WaterHealth India launches The Jaldhaara Foundation . India Infoline. Date of treatment April 28, 2015.
- ↑ Using Innovative, Low-cost Solutions to Provide Safe Drinking Water in India . Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Date of treatment April 28, 2015.
- ↑ Ghana Market Assessment: Market-Based Provision of Water at the Community Level . Safe Water Network. Date of treatment April 28, 2015.
- ↑ AK Khan WaterHealth (Bangladesh) Ltd. (eng.) . AK Khan & Company. Date of treatment April 28, 2015.