In 1789 during a walk, the Marquis of Lessert drank water from the Sainte Catherine spring on the land of a M. Cachat. The marquis, who was allegedly suffering from kidney and liver problems, claimed that the water from the spring cured his ailments. Evian first became a public company in 1859 as the "Société anonyme des eaux minérales de Cachat" and a year later it became French when Savoy was incorporated into France under the Treaty of Turin. The French Ministry of Health reauthorized the bottling of Cachat water on the recommendation of the Medicine Academy in 1878. In 1908 Évian water began to be sold in glass bottles manufactured by the glass factory Souchon-Neuvesel, which today is a part of Owens-Illinois. The first PVC bottle was launched in 1969. During the following year, the BSN Group, which eventually became the Danone Group, took 100% control of the Évian brand. 1978 marked an entrance into the U.S. market. In 1995 Evian switched to collapsible PET bottles. Évian teamed up with Virgin Records and EMI in 1998 for the mix album Club Nation. The album featured many advertisements for Évian, including a logo on the cover, six full pages in the booklet, the image of a bottle of Évian on CD1 and a crushed bottle of Évian on CD2. In 2009, Évian launched the advertisement campaign, "Evian Roller Babies". The campaign won a Gold Award at the London International Awards 2009 for Best Visual Effects. In 2018, Évian announced that it will make all of its plastic bottles from 100% recycled plastic by 2025, a move that will see the natural spring water brand adopt a ‘circular approach’ to its plastic usage, where plastic is kept within the economy and out of nature. In order to achieve its 2025 ambition, Évian is partnering with breakthrough technology companies, one of which is Loop™ Industries. Loop Industries has developed a technology that enables a continuous loop for recycling at large scale, transforming all types of PET plastic waste into the high-quality plastic required by Evian.
Environmentalism
In April 2008, Évian created the Évian Water Protection Institute to work on three water and wetlands management projects with the Ramsar Convention. The three areas where the projects will take place are Thailand's Bung Khong, the La Plata Basin in Argentina, and the Jagdishpur Reservoir in Nepal. Évian has also taken the initiative to cut their own energy and water use by incorporating post-consumer recycled PET plastic into the bottle sizes that receive the most sales. The company has joined with RecycleBank in an effort to get consumers to recycle. Recyclebank is an award-based company that gives participating households redeemable points according to the amount of materials they recycle.
