Coca Cola improved water efficiency by 21.4 percent since 2004 and supported an estimated replenishment of approximately 52 percent of the water used in finished beverage products through 2012, according to the company’s tenth annual Sustainability Report and third Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Report.
Earlier this year, the company was among the first to receive the Carbon Trust Water Standard for achieving its lowest-ever water-use ratio and reducing water usage by nearly 15 percent since 2007.
Coca Cola says it has partnered with DEKA R&D and others to deliver 500 million liters of safe drinking water to communities in 20 countries through Slingshot water purification units and EKOCENTER kiosks. In April, the company partnered with WaterAid to increase accessibility to safe drinking water for one of the poorest suburbs of Burkina Faso’s capital city of Ouagadougou and in two rural communities in southern Ethiopia.
The company says its 5by20 programs in 2012 helped to empower 300,000 women entrepreneurs in 22 countries — more than double the number of participants reached by the end of 2011 — and is on track to assisting 5 million across its value chain by 2020.
The report also updates other areas of progress, such as investing $101.6 million in grants to support sustainable community initiatives in 2012. The beverage manufacturer says it applies its supply chain and logistics expertise to help deliver essential medicines to communities that need them through Project Last Mile. Coke says some 98 percent of its facilities achieved compliance with its Workplace Rights Policy for the second consecutive year.
The company also says it established a new goal to reduce the carbon footprint of “the drink in your hand” by 25 percent by 2020 against baseline year of 2010. To reduce waste, Coca Cola has distributed roughly 14 billion fully recyclable PlantBottle packages across 24 countries through 2012. Coke has also set a new goal to sustainably source key agricultural ingredients by 2020.
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Founder & Principal Consultant, Hower Impact
Mike Hower is the founder of Hower Impact — a boutique consultancy delivering best-in-class strategic communication advisory and support for corporate sustainability, ESG and climate tech.
Published Nov 11, 2013 2am EST / 11pm PST / 7am GMT / 8am CET