Sustainable PR, the Glens Falls public relations company that opened late last year, reports via a press release that it picked up its first client, Soho Waterworks. Soho Waterworks is a green-focused bottled water distributor, marketing premium fine waters worldwide, press materials say.
Tony DeFazio, the president of the company, built his PR career in the Philadelphia area but moved to the north country late last year to start a PR firm aimed at helping environmentally-focused companies tell their stories.
The announcement “is a demonstration that our agency, our burgeoning agency, is striking a chord with businesses that have a mission in sustainability,” DeFazio said in an interview last week. “They [Soho Waterworks] represent the type of company that we want to attract to our portfolio.”
His job is to help develop the key responses to critical questions.
For instance, his “client is cognizant of the fact that it is what it is. They’re distributing a product encased in plastic.”
But the water Soho Waterworks distributes is sourced sustainably, DeFazio said, from “small, family-owned, very pure sources of water.” None of the bottlers use mass production. Jackson Springs water from Manitoba Canada is one the company distributes.
“They have a serious and fundamental commitment to sustainability,” he said. That water is sourced from a protected source located in Manitoba, Canada, their website says.
Along with Jackson Springs, Soho Waterworks distributes Radius99 and Clear Alaskan Glacial which lists itself as a "certified carbon neutral" company as determined by the carbonneutral.com website.
On their website, Clear Alaskan says they use PET-1 plastic in the bottles because they can be most easily recycled, and 50% post-consumer recycled cardboard in their packaging. Many of their materials are not shipped specifically for them but "back hauled" on ships that were coming back to Alaska, anyway.
As a company aspiring to be a leader in fine water sales, distribution, and merchandising in North America, Soho Waterworks has set a goal to change the way consumers think about bottled water. Soho Waterworks is fully committed to transparency and sustainability in the sourcing, development, distribution, and marketing of bottled water, the press release says.
To that end, DeFazio said Waterworks is working with partners in Washington to form a national mandate for bottled water recycling.