MEMBER SPOTLIGHT: BELU
Any hospitality environment has a water service, yet it’s often the last thing that’s thought about. We often take water for granted as it is as easy as a twist of a tap. But where and how you get your water from can make a big impact on some of the local and global challenges we face. We spoke to Belu about how they’re using water to transform lives as well as businesses.
WATER CAN BE EXCITING TOO
“Let’s face it: wine, food…they’re the kind of exciting things (in hospitality), but what we’re about is demonstrating to people that water can be exciting too, and the impact that it can have has benefits from a social and environmental standpoint,” said Claire Pearson of Belu, a purpose-led business that supplies the hospitality industry with sustainable water solutions to create a better, less wasteful world.
Belu is a social enterprise with a core mission to demonstrate and facilitate businesses to do better through water. Purpose-led Belu essentially has a triple bottom line of people, planet and profit. For them this means that on top of reinvesting in sustainable innovation and basing decisions on circular economy principles, they donate 100% of their net profits to WaterAid, the leading global charity which helps the 1 in 10 people worldwide living without clean, safe water to drink. To date, Belu, a female-led business, has donated over £5 million to change over 334,000 lives for good worldwide with clean water, decent toilets and good hygiene.
WATER THAT TASTES GOOD AND DOES GOOD
“I don’t think a business without purpose will be sustainable in the long run because more and more people are demanding that businesses exist with purpose beyond profit”. Claire also believes that partnerships and collaborations with other businesses who want to do good results in greater impact. Belu’s mission is to change the way the world see water by 2030, demonstrating to others that there’s a better way to do business. They just happen to do that through sustainable water service and products.
Alongside putting the environment first, Belu are also committed to transparency with their annual impact report to keep themselves and their partners accountable, and are independently audited each year. They are also currently in the final stage of their B Corp application, which means they will meet the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability to balance purpose and profit.
With Belu helping hospitality businesses to reduce carbon emissions in Hong Kong, instead of serving air-freighted bottled water from the French or Italian Alps, Belu offers globally trusted filtration technology and systems to filter local water to provide premium filtered still and sparkling water. Their waters are also chilled on demand with all impurities removed and with an optimum mineral balance. In the U.K., they partner with top restauranteurs and chefs who want their water to not only consistently taste good, but also make you feel good, and do good.
SERVING UP GOOD WATER IN ASIA’S CULINARY CAPITAL
“We’re nothing without our partners and our customers, and the partners we’ve found so far in Hong Kong really believe in us and want to do the right thing.” Belu will be bringing the Belu Filter Initiative to Hong Kong in Spring 2021 to empower businesses to do better on many fronts: to reduce or remove their single-use plastic waste and lower their carbon emissions by switching to filtered tap water, and to contribute to a great social cause. Joining Belu will also enable business to meet the increasingly tougher standards set by the government to reduce carbon emissions and waste.
Hong Kong is the first city in Asia and in fact the first city outside of the U.K. for Belu’s international expansion of the Belu Filter Initiative. They are currently recruiting Founding Collective partners to join their launch here in Asia’s culinary capital. With two luxury hotels confirmed already on board, they’re welcoming restaurants, bars and members clubs to join their founder stages to help demonstrate to the industry that there’s a better way to do business. Belu’s filtration offerings have different sizes of systems to cater to all space sizes.
“Ultimately it’s about engaging people who want to do business better and align with our values.” By joining the Food Made Good community, Belu hopes to connect with like-minded people and enterprises, raise awareness of crucial environmental and social issues, and enable them to grow and do more good.
To find out more about Belu, visit their website https://belu.org/ or email Claire Pearson clairep@belu.org
You can also read their 2019 impact report here.
This interview was conducted on February 18th 2021 when we were known as Food Made Good HK, prior to our rebranding to Future Green.
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