La Jolla business executives announced the start of NIKA bottled water, a new La Jolla company whose founders partnered with three worldwide nonprofit organizations, pledging to donate 100 percent of their proceeds to the charities, according to NIKA’s Reginald Norris. And Carbonfund.org announced Feb. 23 that the group certified NIKA as the first carbon-free plastic bottled water company on the market. “Mike Stone and Jeff Church are the founders of the company,” Norris said, adding that the duo originally came up with the idea last August. “They’ve had successful careers in their related companies, and they had donor fatigue,” Norris said. Charity representatives continually asked Stone and Church — businessmen from La Jolla and Rancho Santa Fe — for contributions. So the men designed their own water bottle company in an effort to direct their charity contributions, Norris said. “They wanted to create a social business where they could fund revenues that they could donate and put their money to use,” Norris said. “They’ve always been tied into the concept of poverty and into water.” So Stone and Church began the socially aware company they envisioned, Norris said. In an effort to create their own nonprofit business, NIKA executives started the company last August. Until the founders’ 501c3 status was approved, they tackled the charity aspect by pledging an initial fund toward various proj-ects for the company’s charity partners, Norris said. The businessmen approached the water business wearing green glasses from the beginning, from partnering with an eco-artist who designed the bottles’ labels to offsetting their carbon footprint. “Mike and Jeff, through NIKA, committed $300,000 [initially] for projects around the world to show we’re serious about doing this,” Norris said. Stone and Church committed the money toward worldwide projects through NIKA’s charity partners Free the Children, Mill-ennium Promise and Project Concern International. “We’ve been working with these three entities… we donate our money for a specific purpose. In Uganda, it’s for the purpose of deep water wells — it’s for a pointed purpose.” The company earned its title as the first carbon-free water on the market last February, when Carbonfund.org certified the organization, said Ivan Chan, marketing and communications director for Carbonfund.org. “The carbon footprint for an average American is 24 tons of carbon dioxide a year,” Chan said. “When we add up the total population of the U.S., that is why the U.S. is a leading contributor to global warming. So we provide suggestions to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide.” Carbonfund.org creates carbon-free certification for businesses that offset their carbon footprint and supplies “verified carbon-offset projects,” Chan says. “Right now, carbon offsetting is the only way a person [or business] can be carbon neutral. Ultimately, to be carbon neutral, one needs to offset their carbon footprint,” Chan said. Church and Stone founded NIKA with the green concept, learning about their carbon consumption from the beginning. “We partnered with Carbonfund.org, but we hired Clearcarbon Consulting,” Norris said. “They came in and audited our operations — from the cradle to the grave — to see how much carbon we were producing.” According to Norris, the company sends out the number of cases it sold and buys the required number of carbon credits. “We are financing our carbon project — it’s a reforestation proj-ect in Nicaragua,” Norris said. “That project is being administered by Carbonfund.org. It’s the only reforestation project in Nicaragua.” According to Chan, the organization’s reforestation project began in the Southwestern portion of Nicaragua, continuing throughout the Rivas and Granada provinces. But Stone and Church aren’t just funding proj-ects, buying carbon credits and donating money toward charity, Norris said. NIKA executives plan to expand school recycling programs throughout the country. “We’re trying to be plastic-neutral, so to speak. We talk a lot about recycling and what’s the impact if you don’t recycle,” Norris said. “We’re trying to work with schools to see that every plastic bottle is taken off the market and recycled.” Stone and Church designed their company’s labels with an eye toward charity, using paintings from Stephen Bennett, an artist who runs his own nonprofit corporation called Faces of the World. “Jeff met him about eight years ago and fell in love with his artwork,” Norris said. “He said [Bennett’s] paintings, the visuals, would be perfect for what we were doing.” Bennett travels worldwide, painting colorful facial portraits of indigenous people, in an effort to increase cultural pride worldwide. NIKA features three of Bennett’s paintings on its water bottles, Norris said. The men continued to create the nonprofit NIKA charity while starting to run their for-profit water company. According to Norris, the company stocked a Carlsbad warehouse full of NIKA water bottled with labeled portraits of indigenous people painted by Bennett. NIKA’s founders began selling the water online March 2, Norris said, and they hope to begin selling locally to bars and restaurants within the month. To purchase NIKA water, or for more information about the company, visit www.nikawater.org. For more information about Free the Children, visit www.freethechildren.com; for information about Millennium Promise, visit www.millenniumpromise.org; for Project Concern International, visit www.projectconcern.org. For information about artist Stephen Bennett or Faces of the World, visit www.facesoftheworld.net.