On April 26, 2013, Peter Brabeck, the former chair of Nestlé, denied that water is a human right. Later, he adjusted his claim and stated that 25 liters of water per day is the extent of an individual’s human right to water. Following further criticism, the Nestlé website addresses these claims as false and states that it has never believed that all water sources should be privatized.
Brabeck may have strayed from doubling down on such a controversial statement, but still revealed the inherent attitudes of the world’s monopolies on priceless, finite resources.
The Water Crisis
While many take water access for granted, it is one of the most crucial and impacted resources in the world, with a profound effect on millions of people right now. As industrial development has expanded and climate change has worsened, issues such as collapsed infrastructure and distribution systems, contamination, pollution, conflict, and mismanagement of water have increased dramatically.
According to a 2025 report by the World Health Organization and UNICEF, 2.1 billion people don’t have access to drinking water that is properly treated, and 3.4 billion people lack access to safe sanitation methods. Severe water scarcity is experienced by at least 4 billion people for at least one month each year, and by 2030, about 700 million people could be displaced due to this change. This has led various regions across the world, especially in marginalized communities, to suffer from a lack of water access. International institutions warn that water-related instability may increase conflict, mass migration in the coming years, and a wide array of problems that will surely follow.
Many have varying views on what the next steps are and what kind of solutions should be implemented. Proposals for adapting to water trucking, desalination, rainwater harvesting, and improving water infrastructure are being circulated, but the most important is policy. When regulations and laws allow large companies such as Nestlé to abuse human rights, governments are directly responsible for the demise of their own country’s health.
Nestlé’s Role
With more than 1,000 children under the age of five dying daily from diseases connected to a lack of sanitation and pure water, the most vulnerable families are being taken advantage of in their situations. Nestlé, among other large companies, unethically profits from using and abusing water sources, circumventing regulations, all while claiming they take significant efforts to protect water sources and aid communities.
For example, in Sialkot, Pakistan, a whistleblower working as a “medical delegate” stated he was encouraged to approach nurses and have them write prescriptions for Nestlé baby formula for new mothers instead of teaching them how to breastfeed. This was just a small part of a larger campaign in Pakistan launched by Nestlé to promote their infant formula. Using unethical practices such as financial bribes and using health facilities to encourage their products, they violated the World Health Organization’s code of marketing breast milk replacements.
But Nestlé doesn’t just target villages in the Global South; it takes advantage of any opportunity for potential profit, and not just by itself; the U.S. government is complicit. In California’s Strawberry Creek in San Bernardino County, Nestlé paid the U.S. Forest Service and the state essentially nothing for pristine spring water and was still approved for a five-year permit that allows Nestlé to continue extracting water from federal lands even amidst droughts. Similarly, in Evart, Michigan, Nestlé’s request to extract 400 gallons per minute for a yearly fee of $200 was approved, and it was able to continue profiting from natural, pure water while nearby residents in Flint continue to deal with the effects of lead contamination.
After these scandals, a court order demanded consistent monitoring of Nestlé’s actions in Michigan as well as cuts to pumping in the area. Local activists called for boycotts of Nestlé products, echoing the famous Nestlé boycott in 1977 due to the infant formula controversy. This could be the beginning of a larger global movement to demand that companies respect ethics over profits. Boycotts can damage a company’s reputation most successfully through negative media stories, but they are unlikely to harm revenues. Widespread activism in general, which includes lobbying for more refined regulation, is key to making a considerable difference in restricting unethical behavior.
Chasing profits is a logical objective for any company, but having this level of moral negligence has become far too normalized. Corporations actively try to hide the corners they cut to edge out competition, which puts the world in a “race to the bottom” scenario. This system consistently reinforces this selfish approach because if they do not take advantage of vulnerabilities, another company will be willing to do so.
Currently, more than 90 percent of the top 2,000 global companies are proof of this phenomenon by failing to meet basic human rights expectations. According to the World Benchmarking Alliance, it is unclear how these influential companies are choosing to utilize their lobbying efforts, but it is evident that they have significant power that could be used to better the lives of many. Although Nestlé does contribute to various relief efforts and other initiatives, it cannot erase its past and current violations of humanitarian abuses and unethical practices. Their “caring for communities” narrative loses its shine when that money is traced back to profits gained by doing the complete opposite. Despite their claims, there do not seem to be significant changes to their corporate strategy thus far, just more distractions.
In fact, a 2024 French report has linked Nestlé bottled water to significant microplastic contamination and also found in an investigation that Nestlé used illegal filtration with allegations of masking contamination in mineral water, where estimated fraud is more than 3 billion euros. EU regulations prohibit altering mineral water, but many corporations seek loopholes to circumvent these laws. The company risked losing its “natural mineral water” label from the results of this investigation and faces potential action by the European Union.
A Thirst for Activism
Nestlé should take accountability and accept the repercussions, but this doesn’t repair the deep-rooted issue. Due to the sheer number of illicit actions companies take daily, society becomes desensitized, and we forget the capabilities of collective agency. Nestlé and others will continue to push the ethical boundaries of water resources and will not stop until they are forced to. What needs to be done is passing stricter, more enforceable laws, and holding both corporations and governments accountable when such consequential resources are globally putting lives at risk.
Agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration have already taken steps in the right direction by increasing the amount of unannounced inspections at foreign manufacturing sites and reevaluating current policies. Besides legal action, local activism has proved successful, although it does require a rather large and persistent community. Groups such as the Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation won a reduction in the amount of water Nestlé was pumping after a 10-year conflict, which demonstrates the power of committed citizens to encourage improved litigation. It is not the case that nothing has been done at all or that it is impossible to go up against such a strong company, but as a society, we have the power to reset our morals.
Nestlé’s plethora of water scandals depicts the extent to which profit overpowers ethics and the lack of effective regulation, which is already perpetuating detrimental circumstances worldwide.
There is no benefit to accepting this as the norm – we should empower regulatory activism and shift the status quo to one that gives more value to a human life than a dollar.
Featured Image Source: The Independent