There is an awareness growing in our society about the environmental cost associated with bottled water. To ease the pressure on our pockets and our environment, some people are turning back to drinking tap water. Yet the purity and taste of tap water is lately seriously questionable, and becoming sadly more so. So how to ensure your water is super clean and of a standard and taste comparable with the purest water?

Enter Vivreau, which means 'water is life' in French. This company is Europe and America's leading developer and manufacturer of "advanced" drinking water systems. This privately owned company started out as a family business in the 1980s and is now established in 5 continents, including North America, Europe, Asia, Australia and have just launched their African Office, operating from Cape Town, South Africa. If you use the Vivreau system you fill up your own re-usable glass bottles from your building's own mains-fed on-site purification system.

Vivreau's Table Water Drinking System provides an environmentally positive alternative to pre-bottled mineral waters. Since the start of their company, Vivreau has been committed to providing the highest quality water from the most local source to eliminate transportation and packaging. Vivreau is served in the boardrooms of over 65% of the Forbes and Fortune TOP 500 companies, assisting them in achieving their ISO 14001 environmental management rating.

The company's principal growth has been in the Hospitality industry in the past decade. Today many of the world's great luxury brands count themselves as Vivreau converts.

Green evolutionaries

A small example of these "Green Evolutionaries" includes The Westin, Marriott and Hilton Hotel chains across Europe & North America, Virgin Limited Resorts, Many Leading Hotels of the World, British Airways 1st Class & Virgin Upper Class Lounges (N. America & Europe) and even the White House in Washington DC & Formula 1 racing Team Trucks

To cater for the needs of the African market, Vivreau has set up a network of approved laboratories across the continent which provides analysis of potential clients' water. This enables them to offer a world class drinking water solution from almost any source (incl. open reservoirs and boreholes). This has specifically been set-up for game farms and related remote properties, as well as dealing with increasingly problematic municipal supplies.

They've also developed a "Strategic partner program", for clients whose core business entails generating high volumes of human traffic that consume high volumes of bottled water. Through this they develop integrated programs to educate staff and consumers, marketed internally to ensure a tangible spin-off enabling consumers to feel they're making the right environmental choice.

Just push a button for pure water

"Increasing environmental awareness has developed ever increasing demand for a suitable replacement to premium bottled waters, without sacrificing the perceived prestige with which these brands first positioned themselves", says Charles Tapanlis, who heads the brand for Africa . "Vivreau's stated mission is to provide an alternative which sacrifices nothing in terms of taste, is more cost-effective when using high volumes and dramatically raises the bar on presentation vs. bottled water ."

Their commercial systems provide almost unlimited quantities of Pure Vivreau Still & Sparkling Water, chilled to around 5°C. Further solutions ranging from smaller Professional VR systems through to their range topping, integrated Linkline system (a central plant providing 65 dispensing points across 30 stories provide additional features such as 95°hot and even flavoured water was recently installed in the UK). All you need is to push a button." How is that possible?

"Our market leading technology, with many proprietary elements, ensures the highest purification efficacies and optimised use of resources," says Charles, "Our chillers do not use holding tanks to cool water, which are inefficient and potentially unhealthy". Vivreau systems cool or heat on demand, to avoid power wastage. Ice bank refrigeration technology chills the water as it passes through the internal stainless steel piping, blasting it with iced air as its' dispensed, utilizing extremely low power requirements (5 amps for virtually unlimited 5°C still or sparkling Vivreau pure water) and removing impurities down to 0.15 micron, which removes 99.999% of what you don't want in your water.

Not a drop wasted

"Vivreau's unique 425 ml bottle size is indicative of our attention to detail to reduce wastage and be environmentally optimal" says Charles . "Studies done on our new and existing customers water bottle waste in the UK found an average of 75ml left in a 500ml bottle. If that's the case, why waste? Hence the 425ml size."

Transporting pre-bottled water creates a substantial carbon footprint due to the petrol usage, plus the wastage if bottles are not recycled. According to Vivreau, in the UK 80% of a typical city office's glass packaging waste is attributed to pre-bottled mineral water. Because their purifying mains are on site, Vivreau eliminates transport pollution, eliminates packaging waste and reduces refrigeration requirements by providing chilled water on demand.

Our environmental proposition, particularly to the Hospitality industry, can be summarized as follows:

    An establishment using just 60 bottles of water per day generates 43800 bottles of waste over 2 years.
    20 Vivreau designer bottles, sterilized and re-used 3 times in a day, replaces all that waste.

"With clients such as Etendeka Lodge in Namibia, reached by Land Rover in 8.5 hours from Windhoek, the carbon cost, water miles and waste which we're saving is obvious and astounding", says Charles. "Incredibly, we're finding that in some cases just the savings realized through the reduction in waste and refuse services, covers the cost of the system"

Branded stainless steel bottles

Other options, such as client branded stainless steel bottles (which can be personalized with staff's names) offer an integrated turnkey solutions for applications such as game drives, staff that are on the road often etc.

What are the benefits of using purified mains-fed water in your business or building?

• Eliminates deliveries - reduces transport CO2, eases congestion and pollution
• Eliminates packaging waste associated with pre-bottled waters
• Reduces refrigerated storage requirements by chilling water on demand

Vivreau is moving with speed into the local green tourism industry, as well as corporate buildings, where these nifty installations form part of their eco credibility and sustainability programmes.

Vivreau Africa has additionally just launched a Durban office and will be expanding into Gauteng and Mauritius over the next few months.

Check them out at trendy spots

If you'd like to try Vivreau Pure Water, it can already be found at Cape Town's trendiest and finest establishments including The Grand Café's, Pepenero, The Foodbarn; The Vineyard, Devon Valley, Erinvale and Le Franschoek Hotels, The Roundhouse restaurant, Pure at Hout Bay Manor and even Origin Coffee shop.

Corporates who've installed the system include Standard Bank Regional H.O., Clicks Group, Mazars and Webber Wentsel Cape town and Honda in the CityCentre.

To view the available products or for more information visit http://www.vivreau.com/ or call their office/ email them on 021 671 6306 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it