Iceberg-Product Profitability Causes “Cold Rush” Among Iceberg Water Entrepreneurs

By Lev Krasnovsky '21Imagine sitting in a café in Canada and being served a fizzy glass of water, only to find that the ice in your water came from a 20,000 year old iceberg. This phenomenon is a growing industry in Canada, Greenland, Newfoundland and Norway, where businesses are using water and ice from ancient icebergs to popularize their ventures and make their beverage products stand out.As global warming continues changing the environment, icebergs are breaking apart at an alarming rate. Tiny chips known as “growlers” melt off from larger icebergs, and are fueling a rush in businesses hoping to capitalize on theirnovelty. Iceberg ice is unique in that it crackles as it melts, releasing the millenia-old air inside, and is free of almost any minerality or pollutants. Products such as beer made using iceberg water, or a cocktail served with iceberg ice, provide an enticing aesthetic that tourists are eager to consume and experience.However, the iceberg industry is completely unregulated—a total “free for all” to get the ice. Iceberg harvesting is not mentioned in the United Nations Law of the Sea or Antarctic Treaty System, so regulations typically arise only as local governments see this industry developing. Locals, who have been harvesting iceberg ice for generations, now share waters with commercial startups attempting to sell these natural resources on a large scale. One business charges up to $166 per liter of iceberg water, which consumers describe tastes “velvety smooth.” The businesses claim that the water and ice are so expensive because harvesting from the icebergs can be a dangerous task, and at the end of the day this is a “small price to pay for pre-industrial purity.”In response to the growing industry, Newfoundland has begun to regulate iceberg collection. It instituted a tax on harvesters and now requires a license to harvest. As a condition of the license, harvesters must mark icebergs they plan to harvest, but the businesses thus far have been slow to comply. The regulations themselves are additionally very lenient to businesses, in that companies are allowed to self-report their ice collection statistics and therefore have room to falsify numbers.Icebergs aren’t just being used as a luxury good. In some cases, they are being tested as an emergency source of clean drinking water to nations facing drought. Cape Town, for example, recently had to limit household water consumption to 13 gallons of water per day due significant lack of rainfall in recent years, and entrepreneurs began work on the logistics of how problems like these could be ameliorated with icebergs. Most recently, a German start-up called Polewater announced that it is planning to tow icebergs to South Africa in order to help combat water scarcity. Their website states, “We can move locations or generate drinking water in several places around the world at the same time wherever we need pure and safewater.” New iceberg companies do seem aware of the environmental impact harvesting and shipping iceberg water has, and in response are donating money to organizations that support CO2-reducing projects.While the iceberg-product industry is still small, it is growing. This year, Newfoundland issued more licenses than ever before and the trend is expected to continue. But with so much still unknown about the effects of iceberg harvesting, it is important that local governments promote more research into the industry, and if necessary, introduce stronger regulations to manage it.Sources: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/10/iceberg-water-and-race-exploit-arctic/601147/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-06-06/towing-an-iceberg-one-captain-s-plan-to-bring-drinking-water-to-4-million-peoplehttp://www.polewater.com/?lang=en