better beverage contract campaign

The bottled water free campus campaign is well underway this summer. TAPthirst has been working hard to mobilize students, staff and faculty at Concordia to take a stance on bottled water and to encourage the administration to negotiate a better beverage contract with the termination of our exclusivity contract with Pepsico. TAPthirst and the university's Environmental Advisory Committee have outlined a number of objectives for the upcoming beverage contract. With your support we hope to have these objectives recognized by the administration so that they may guide the negotiation of our new beverage contract.

These objectives include:

I) No individually packaged bottled water will be sold through any contract on campus

II) The contract(s) will ensure health conscious, environmentally, and socially conscious products, in keeping with the University's Sustainability Mandate, as specified in the University's Strategic Plan, with 30 percent of all products supplied locally.*
*based on research of local supply capacity and definitions of local criteria to be determined.

III) The contracts will be non-exclusive. The criteria for the contracts will not include exclusivity rights, therefore allowing for the opportunity of having alternatively supplied beverages on campus and multiple suppliers.

IV) Negotiation of the contracts will be clear, democratic and transparent as per Law C-65.1 (Act Respective Contracting by Public Bodies)
This implies that:
a) contracts will be open to bidding by multiple companies
b) criteria for prospective suppliers, in the form of a RPF (request for proposal), will be public information
c) the selection process will be transparent, publicly available, and publicized.
d) the selection process will be fair; no one company will be favored over another.


In the past year municipalities, schools and universities have stood up for Canada's public water services by phasing out the provision and sale of bottled water, while at the same time taking a principled stance against the commodification of a basic human and ecological right. At present there are 79 municipalities (from 8 provinces and 2 territories), 7 school boards, 7 universities and colleges and 1 province that have announced restrictions on bottled water. Additionally, a number of associations, such as the Canadian Federation of Municipalities (FCM), have encouraged their members to restrict bottled water. The movement towards free, accessible public water is growing nation-wide.

Please take the time to sign our online petition and join us in creating a more sustainable campus.

http://www.csu.qc.ca/index.php?module=bkbPetition&func=sign&id=5&catid=-1

For more information email tapthirst@gmail.com