As the summer heats up in the UK, the need to cool down means it’s easy to take the importance of water for granted. Yet clean water is a gift - according to the makers of Frank water, there are more people in the world’s hospitals suffering from water-borne diseases than from any other ailment.

Founder Katie Alcott explains what led her to start the Frank venture in 2005: ‘I was teaching in a community school in Kashmir, and I found it strange that after every couple of months a new child would come in. I asked the headmistress and she said that they weren’t new – they’d just been off school due to diarrhoea or another water-related illness. It made it very hard to teach!’

The project is simple. Water is extracted from artesian wells in North Devon and sold as Frank bottled water in the UK. 20 pence profit is made with each litre sold, before being handed over to state-of-the-art projects in India, currently focused on Andhra Pradesh. The result is 200 litres of clean water for each litre sold in the UK. According to Alcott; ‘The work meets World Health Organisation guidelines on technology-focused projects. It’s about recycling water that is already in use there.' Instead of boring wells, Frank funds a five-stage filtering process that ensures the cleanliness of the water.

Perhaps most impressive are the sustainability credentials of the projects. Frank funds the initial implementation and works with an NGO on the ground to ensure the smooth running of the scheme. While residents of the village are charged a nominal – and affordable – fee, the profits they take then go back into the community, with many villages choosing to put funds into education. There are more projects planned on top of the current eight, with expansion outside of Andhra Pradesh into other states of India, as well as a move into Africa, via Ghana, well underway.