Refill Partner Terms

2. Definitions

• We, us, the Foundation: BrainGreen Foundation, operator of BottleChallenge.
• Platform: the BottleChallenge website, mobile applications and related services.
• You, Refill Partner: the business or organisation responsible for the venue listed.
• Venue: the physical place where refills are offered.
• Listing: the public profile of your venue on the Platform.
• User: a person using the Platform to find or record a refill.
• EcoDrops: the internal, non monetary loyalty units users receive for recorded refills. They are not money, not electronic money and cannot be exchanged for cash.
• NFC tag: the contactless tag we may supply so that users can record a refill at your venue.

3. Eligibility and application

To join as a Refill Partner you must:

• operate a venue that the public can enter during its stated opening hours;
• be entitled to represent that venue, either as its operator or with the operator's permission;
• give accurate details about the venue and a working contact address; and
• accept these terms.

You may be an individual acting in a business capacity, a company, or a non profit organisation. If you are a consumer rather than a trader, section 16 explains which protections still apply to you.

We review applications and may ask for evidence that the venue exists and that you are entitled to list it. We may decline an application. If we do, we will tell you why, unless doing so would be unlawful or would help someone abuse the Platform.

4. What you commit to

By listing your venue you agree to the following.

• Refills during opening hours. You will let people fill a reusable bottle with drinking water during the hours shown on your listing.
• No purchase required. You will not require a purchase, a tip or any other payment as a condition of a refill, unless your listing clearly states a charge before the user travels to you.
• Accurate information. You will keep your opening hours, address and availability up to date, and tell us promptly if the venue closes temporarily or permanently.
• Equal treatment. You will treat people who come for a refill with the same courtesy as any other visitor, and will not discriminate on grounds of race, ethnicity, nationality, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, disability, age or any other protected characteristic.
• Reasonable limits are allowed. You may apply sensible operational limits, for example refusing service at closing time, during a water outage, or where a person behaves abusively. Any limit that applies regularly must be stated on your listing.

You remain free to run your business as you see fit. Nothing here obliges you to stay open, to serve anyone in breach of the law, or to keep the venue in operation.

5. Water quality and safety

You are solely responsible for the water you provide and for compliance with the food, hygiene and drinking water rules that apply where your venue is located. Within the European Union this includes the national rules implementing Directive (EU) 2020/2184 on the quality of water intended for human consumption.

You confirm that the water you offer is fit to drink. We do not test, certify or guarantee water quality at any venue, and our Terms of Service say so to users.

6. NFC tags

Users record a refill by tapping their phone on an NFC tag at your venue. Tapping a tag is the only way a refill can be recorded, and refills are where most EcoDrops come from. The complete list of ways EcoDrops can be received is in the EcoDrops Rewards Terms. We do not use printed codes for refills, because a printed code can be photographed and reused away from the venue.

If we supply you with a tag:

• the tag remains the property of BrainGreen Foundation;
• you will place it where a visitor can reach it, at or near the point where refills happen;
• you will not move it to another venue, copy it, open it, or attempt to read or alter its security keys;
• you will tell us if it is lost, damaged or stops working, and we will replace it at no cost;
• on termination, you will return it to us or destroy it.

Tags are supplied free of charge. We may limit how many tags a venue receives.

7. Your listing and content

7.1 Accuracy

You are responsible for the text, photographs and opening information on your listing. It must be accurate, must relate to the venue, and must not infringe anyone else's rights.

7.2 Licence you give us

You grant us a non exclusive, worldwide, royalty free licence to host, display, resize and distribute your listing content for the purpose of operating and promoting the Platform. The licence lasts while your listing is published. If you remove your listing we will stop using the content, except for copies already included in printed or archived material and for backups until they are overwritten in the ordinary course.

7.3 Suggestions from users

Users can suggest a correction to a listing, for example a better photograph or a more accurate map pin. Suggestions are reviewed by our moderators before anything changes. You can ask us to review any change to your listing by writing to [email protected].

7.4 Moderation

We may edit or remove listing content that breaks these terms, our Acceptable Use Policy or the law. If we do, we will tell you what we removed and why, and you can appeal under section 14.

8. Ranking and visibility

Listings are ordered by the following parameters, given in order of importance, as required by Article 5 of Regulation (EU) 2019/1150:

1. The filters the user has chosen decide what appears at all, category being the main one. A point that has been filtered out is not shown, however close it is.
2. Distance orders everything that passes the filters. Points nearer the user's position, or nearer the area they are viewing, come first. Distance is the only ordering rule we apply to refill points.
3. Whether the point is published. A point marked closed or unavailable is not shown.

There is no quality score, no popularity score and no editorial ranking for refill points. Completeness of your listing does not change your position, although a listing with a photograph and accurate hours is more likely to be chosen once it is seen.

We do not sell placement. No payment of any kind influences where a venue appears. We do not offer paid promotion. If that ever changes we will amend this section and give you notice under section 15 first.

8.1 Differentiated treatment

We give no refill point differentiated treatment, within the meaning of Article 7 of the same Regulation. BrainGreen Foundation lists no venue of its own, and no venue receives better placement, a badge or any other advantage over another.

Differences do exist elsewhere on the Platform. In the EcoDrops shop our moderators can mark a reward as featured, and a reward partner whose account is active carries a verified mark. Public bodies using the municipality panel have tools that a venue does not. None of this is available for money.

9. Data and privacy

9.1 Our roles

We are the controller of personal data about Platform users. You are the controller of personal data you collect at your own venue. Neither of us processes personal data on behalf of the other, so no data processing agreement is needed between us for this relationship.

9.2 Access to data

This section states the access each of us has, as required by Article 9 of Regulation (EU) 2019/1150.

• You have the figures in your partner dashboard, for as long as your account is open. They are counts only: how many refills were recorded at your venue and over what period. They do not include the names, email addresses, telephone numbers or precise locations of the users who visited. There is no export file, so ask us if you need the figures in another form.
• We have everything you entered, together with the counts generated by users interacting with your listing. We use it to operate the Platform, answer your questions, detect abuse and produce aggregate figures about the network.
• Third parties receive none of it. We do not sell, license or share your data or your figures with anyone for their own purposes. The technical providers that host and deliver the Platform process it on our behalf, and are listed in our Privacy Policy.
• After you leave, your dashboard closes and the figures are no longer available through it. If you ask within 90 days of leaving, we will send you a copy.

9.3 Your details are published

The venue name, address, opening hours, photographs and any business contact details you enter are published on the Platform. Do not enter a private home address or a personal telephone number unless you are content for it to be public.

How we handle personal data is described in our Privacy Policy.

10. Use of our brand

While your listing is active you may say that your venue takes part in BottleChallenge and display any sticker or window sign we supply. You may not suggest that we endorse your products, that we certify your water, or that you are part of BrainGreen Foundation.

You may not alter our name or logo, use them in your own product names, or register them as part of a domain or trade mark. This permission ends when your participation ends, and you agree to remove our signage within a reasonable period afterwards.

You grant us permission to show your venue name and, where you have supplied one, your logo on the Platform and in material describing the network of participating venues. You can withdraw that permission for promotional material at any time by writing to us.

11. No fees

12. Liability

12.1 Your responsibility

You are responsible for your venue, for the water you serve, for the safety of visitors on your premises and for compliance with the law where you operate. If a claim is brought against us because of something that happened at your venue or because information you supplied was wrong, you will cover our reasonable losses and legal costs, to the extent the claim results from your act or omission.

12.2 How a claim is handled

An indemnity only works if it is fair to run, so it is subject to all of the following.

• We will tell you in writing, without undue delay, about any claim we intend to pass on, and give you the details we have.
• You may take over the defence of the claim with counsel of your choice, and we will cooperate reasonably at your cost.
• Neither of us will settle a claim in a way that admits your liability or imposes an obligation on you without your written agreement, which you will not withhold unreasonably.
• We will take reasonable steps to keep the loss down, and you do not have to cover loss caused by our own failure to do so, or by our own act or omission.
• Your total liability under this indemnity is capped at EUR 25,000 in any twelve month period, except for a claim arising from your fraud or intentional wrongdoing, which is uncapped.
• Twelve month period means the twelve months ending on the day the claim is first notified to you.

We give you the same undertaking in return, on the same terms, for a claim brought against you because of something we did.

12.3 Our responsibility

The Platform is provided without any commitment that it will be uninterrupted or error free. We are not liable for lost profits, lost business or indirect losses arising from your participation.

These limits do not apply, and nothing in these terms excludes or limits our liability, for:

• death or personal injury caused by our negligence;
• damage caused intentionally, which under Article 473 section 2 of the Polish Civil Code cannot be excluded in advance;
• damage caused by gross negligence, which we do not seek to exclude;
• fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation; or
• any other liability that cannot lawfully be limited.

Subject to the paragraph above, our total liability to you in any twelve month period is limited to EUR 1,000. Participation is free of charge and involves no payment between us.

13. Restriction, suspension and termination

13.1 By you

You can leave at any time, for any reason, from your partner dashboard or by writing to [email protected]. We will unpublish your listing promptly, and you will return or destroy any NFC tag.

13.2 By us

We may restrict, suspend or end your participation if:

• you break these terms or the Acceptable Use Policy;
• the information you gave is false or has become materially wrong;
• users repeatedly report that refills are refused or that the venue is not as described;
• there is a credible water safety or public health concern;
• the venue has closed; or
• we are required to act by law or by a competent authority.

13.3 Statement of reasons and notice

We apply Article 4 of Regulation (EU) 2019/1150 as follows.

• If we restrict or suspend your listing, we will give you a statement of reasons on a durable medium, at the latest when the restriction takes effect, setting out the specific facts and the grounds we relied on.
• If we terminate your participation, we will give you a statement of reasons and at least 30 days' notice before it takes effect.
• We may act faster, and without the 30 day notice, where a legal or regulatory duty requires it, where there is a safety risk, or where you have repeatedly and seriously broken these terms. We will still give you the statement of reasons.
• If we lift a suspension we will restore your listing without delay and, where the suspension was based on a mistake, we will say so.

13.4 Effect

When participation ends, your listing is unpublished and the licence in section 7.2 ends. The physical point may remain on the map as a publicly known refill location if it is one, but it will no longer be presented as a partner venue and you will no longer have a dashboard for it.

14. Complaints and mediation

14.1 Complain to us first

If you are unhappy with a decision we have made, including a restriction, suspension, termination or a change to your listing, write to [email protected] with the word "appeal" in the subject line. We will look at the decision again, free of charge, and give you a reasoned answer.

You can appeal for at least six months after the decision. We aim to answer within 14 days.

14.2 Our size, and what that means

BrainGreen Foundation is a small enterprise within the meaning of Article 2(2) of the Annex to Recommendation 2003/361/EC. Article 11(5) and Article 12(5) of Regulation (EU) 2019/1150 exempt providers of that size from operating a formal internal complaint handling system and from designating mediators. Article 19 of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065, the Digital Services Act, likewise exempts an enterprise of that size from the internal complaint system in its Article 20. The appeal route in section 14.1 is therefore offered voluntarily, and we will honour it as though it were required.

If our size changes so that those exemptions no longer apply, we will put a compliant complaint handling system in place, name at least two mediators here, and tell you before the change takes effect.

14.3 Mediation

We will attempt mediation in good faith for any dispute we cannot settle directly. Nothing in this section prevents either of us from going to court, or from seeking urgent relief, at any time.

15. Changes to these terms

We may change these terms. We will notify active Refill Partners by email and give at least 30 days' notice before the change takes effect, which exceeds the 15 day minimum in Article 3(2) of Regulation (EU) 2019/1150.

We will not apply a change retroactively. A change takes effect from its effective date onwards and does not alter anything that already happened, including a voucher already issued or a decision already taken. Article 8(a) of Regulation (EU) 2019/1150 requires this.

You may end your participation at any time during the notice period, and doing so means the change never applies to you. Continuing to take part after the change takes effect means you accept it. We will not apply a shorter notice period except where the law requires an immediate change.

Each version is numbered. We record which version you accepted and when, and we keep a copy of every published version. If you ask, we will send you the text of the version you accepted.

16. Governing law and disputes

These terms are governed by Polish law. The United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods does not apply.

If you are a business. Disputes will be heard by the courts of Warsaw, Poland.

If you are an individual acting outside your trade or profession. The consumer protection rules of the country where you live continue to apply to you, and Polish law does not deprive you of them. You may bring proceedings in the courts of the country where you live, and we may bring proceedings against you only there. Sections 12.3 and 16 do not reduce any right you have under mandatory consumer law.

You can also raise a concern with a consumer or trader protection authority in your own country.

17. General provisions

• Independent parties. You act independently. Nothing here creates employment, agency, partnership or a joint venture between us.
• No exclusivity. You are free to take part in any other scheme, and we are free to list any other venue.
• Assignment. You may not transfer your participation without our written consent, which we will not withhold unreasonably if the venue changes hands. We may transfer our rights to a successor that undertakes to honour these terms.
• Severability. If any part of these terms is unenforceable, the rest continues to apply.
• Entire agreement. These terms and the documents they refer to are the whole agreement about your participation.
• Language. We publish these terms in English and in Polish. If your seat is in Poland, the Polish version is the binding one. Otherwise the English version prevails if a translation differs. Both are available at any time, and a link to the other one sits at the top of this page.

18. Contact

BrainGreen Foundation (Fundacja BrainGreen)
Plac Konstytucji 4/17, 00-552 Warsaw, Poland
Registered in the National Court Register (KRS) kept by the District Court for the Capital City of Warsaw.
KRS: 0000964547 | NIP: 5252903313 | REGON: 521709494
Email: [email protected]
Website: BrainGreen Foundation website