Center for Social Innovation

The Problem

Nearly one-tenth of the world's population lives on islands, yet islanders receive disproportionately little attention and investment to address their growing social, environmental, and economic problems. In the Pacific Islands alone, at least 3 million people lack access to clean water. Since being colonized, many once self-sustaining island communities have lost their fresh water sources due to deforestation, overpopulation, the presence of animal waste from agriculture and introduced species like rats, and changes in rain patterns caused by climate change. Technology has also enabled people to live on formerly uninhabitable islands, imposing a need for water in places where nature does not consistently provide it.

Over the past two decades, the trend has been to import water in single-use plastic bottles, setting off a cascade of health and environmental problems. Plastic chemicals that leach into bottled water are known to cause a variety of serious health issues. Meanwhile, bottles pile up in open landfills, wash into the ocean and contribute to the growing number of floating ‘garbage patches' increasingly being reported in the news. As a result, more than 100,000 marine mammals and one million seabirds die each year from ingesting or becoming entangled in plastic. Because plastics do not biodegrade, they "photodegrade" –– dissolving into smaller and smaller particles that further invade the waters and enter the digestive systems of wildlife. Humans at the end of the food chain face an endless stretch of long-term health problems as a result.

On the economic side of the issue, water vendors on islands could capture more of the profit margin if a different approach was used. 'Aulani Wilhem's nonprofit organization, Island Water, aims to help vendors produce water on the islands themselves, through a bottle return and reuse system. Instead of sharing earnings with bottlers and distributors and absorbing the costs of shipping, this solution will allow them to capture more revenue while reducing the waste generated on island. On-island bottling would also reduce islanders' dependence on imports.

The Novel Idea

Island Water aims to alleviate the health, environmental, and economic problems caused by water scarcity by bringing new water capture and bottling technology to islands. Island Water is partnering with manufacturers and others to adapt existing technologies so that island entrepreneurs will be able to source, sanitize, and bottle water on island. Wilhelm is consulting with island leaders and plans to work closely with communities to assess and address their needs.  She aims to help local entrepreneurs finance, design, and set up on-site purification and bottling systems that capitalize on the supply chain already established on many islands for glass bottled products such as beer, soda, and juice. 

"It's important to reduce island dependence on water consumed in single-use plastic bottles," Wilhelm says. By producing and distributing water on island, vendors will be able generate more revenue while also directly reducing the amount of waste being generated. "It's a quadruple bottom-line solution, simultaneously addressing the health, environmental, economic, and cultural needs of islanders," says Wilhelm.

Island Water is presently raising support to adapt existing technology for small, developing island communities where the trend toward single-use plastic can be slowed or reversed, and launch a pilot to test and refine the water-bottling process and distribution model. Long term, Wilhelm sees potential to adapt the model for developed islands and beyond as demand for an alternative to single-use plastic water bottles grows. 

"We're committed to co-designing and implementing solutions with island partners to build capacity and ensure long-term sustainability of the enterprise ventures," says Wilhelm. "Being an islander myself, I know that unless you understand and work with the communities and their real needs, your efforts on their behalf won't be successful." 

The Innovator

Born and raised in Hawai'i with relatives who were fishermen and with ocean sports a regular part of her life, 'Aulani Wilhelm has "always held a deep love for the ocean." For the past 15 years, she has worked in the Pacific on marine conservation efforts to protect remote islands and atolls and draw global attention to the importance of oceans. That work brought home to her the dual problem of water scarcity and pollution caused by single-use plastic bottles. "As manager of Papahānaumokuākea, one of the world's largest conservation areas that suffers from the continuous onslaught of ocean debris, I have witnessed first-hand the horrific impacts of plastic pollution on wildlife and human health," she says. 

Both in setting up field camps in remote island environments and working with small island communities, Wilhelm had to face the challenges of energy generation, water purification, and sanitation.  She learned through experience just how profound the water scarcity problem is. "In some places, concern over where we would find clean water would consume us. Even if water was available, we worried about whether or not it would make us sick," she says.

With a native Hawaiian mother and a European father, Wilhelm sees herself as a natural "bridge person" across cultures, institutions, and sectors. Her work has led her to bring together governments, nonprofits, scientists, and community leaders in creating integrated solutions to care for the land, sea, and people. "I came to Stanford to learn the language of business so that I can be even more effective in this work," she says. "It's my hope that Island Water will be able to draw from business and lean-start up models to both bring about social good and generate revenue, while also creating microenterprise opportunities for island communities." The idea for developing an alternative to single-use plastic water bottles was nurtured in two courses at the GSB, Startup Garage and a Formation of New Ventures course focused on social enterprise.  

The origins of what Wilhelm refers to as her "calling" to be a voice for islands and culture runs deeply, and Wilhelm is inspired by ancestral Hawaiian beliefs about the interconnectedness of people and the natural world. "Our origin story tells us that life evolved from the ocean and we descend from the living creatures that emerged out of darkness before we did. As such, they are our ancestors and we have a lineal obligation to care for them," she says. The Hawaiian creation story in fact remarkably parallels the phylogenetic order proposed much later by Western scientists, she explains. "I feel an ancestral obligation to those who come after me to preserve our islands and way of life. I'm the mother of three amazing boys, and they inspire me every day to contribute and leave the world a better place for them."