coca cola a case study in sustainability

Case Studies

The coca-cola company: building a climate-resilient value chain, july 9, 2018.

The Coca-Cola Company has been working to reduce emissions in its supply chain for years—including not only those associated with bottling, but also those associated with growing ingredients, producing packaging, and distributing and refrigerating products. As climate change impacts have begun to manifest around the globe, the 132-year-old company partnered with BSR to take this work a step further to examine what climate risk and resilience might mean for The Coca-Cola Company value chain.

The Challenge

From agricultural ingredients, like citrus and tea, to hyper-local distribution systems, The Coca-Cola Company supply chain is one of the largest and most complex in the world. Coca-Cola products are sold in more than 200 countries and territories, and each of those markets faces unique exposure and vulnerability to the impacts of climate change.

Mitigation efforts—those focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions—are vital to any company’s climate strategy and critical to global efforts to avoid unmanageable climate impacts. As the impacts of climate change are increasingly felt around the world, however, it has become clear that simultaneous efforts are necessary to increase adaptive capacity and build resilience.

“Resilience” is defined as “the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties.” In the context of climate change, resilience is the ability of a system (such as a bottling plant, distribution network, or supply chain) or community to rebound following a shock such as a natural disaster. Building resilience requires not only recognizing potential hazards like extreme weather events, but also understanding the underlying vulnerabilities that may affect recovery from these potential disasters. For example, insufficient infrastructure can reduce a community’s capacity to rebound following a disruption like an extreme weather event, as can poverty or gender inequality.

After years focused on climate mitigation and water stewardship, understanding climate risk and resilience was a natural next step for Coca-Cola.

Our Strategy

BSR partnered with Coca-Cola to begin building the foundation for a more resilient company that is better able to anticipate, avoid, accommodate, and recover from climate risks in the future. At the outset, we identified seven markets—Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Kenya, Mexico, and the United States—and two commodities—coffee and tea—to serve as proxies for the full Coca-Cola value chain. For each of these markets and commodities, we explored exposure to major climate hazards in the context of underlying vulnerabilities, such as rapid urbanization, at-risk populations, food and economic insecurity, and insufficient infrastructure.

Using this analysis, a benchmark of climate resilience activities in the food and beverage sector, Coca-Cola’s existing risk mitigation strategy, and insights from internal company interviews, we developed a framework for identifying and prioritizing climate-related risks. We then mapped Coca-Cola’s existing programs and initiatives to high-priority risks and outlined an approach for expanding this work further across the company’s major business units.

Our Outcomes and Impact

The climate resilience framework we developed aims to integrate resilience into Coca-Cola’s existing strategy, risk management, and sustainability systems. The framework is designed to connect and amplify The Coca-Cola Company’s efforts in empowering women, protecting the climate, and sustainably sourcing ingredients, as well as in water leadership and community development. Over time, we hope to see the framework used to help Coca-Cola create a more resilient value chain, enabling the company to confidently source responsibly cultivated ingredients, withstand or promptly recover from climate-related impacts, identify and reduce climate risks, and contribute to building value chain and community resilience where Coca-Cola is produced and sold.

We hope that these leading-edge efforts will inspire other companies, as well as their partners in the public sector and civil society, to take a more holistic look at climate risk in their value chains and communities and identify opportunities to build adaptive capacity and resilience.

Lessons Learned

Undertaking this work with Coca-Cola allowed us to translate what we know about climate risk and resilience into the context of a global supply chain. Here are a few suggestions for companies interested in exploring climate risk and resilience in their value chains:

• Start small : Begin with a selection of facilities, locations, or products that represent important aspects of your business. This will allow you to identify the most useful and important data points before scaling your approach across the organization.
• Integrate into existing systems : Rather than approaching climate risk and resilience as a new, standalone exercise, consider integrating climate considerations into existing risk management and/or sustainability systems.
• Appreciate both the global and the local : Much like water stewardship, managing climate risk and building resilience is both a global and intensely local challenge. While some tenets and approaches can be broadly applied, individual interventions must be customized and reflect on-the-ground realities.

Learn more about our work on climate-resilient supply chains .

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The Coca-Cola Company

• Supply Chain
• Food, Beverage, and Agriculture
• Consumer Products
• Climate Change

Let’s talk about how BSR can help you to transform your business and achieve your sustainability goals .

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Coca-Cola: Preparing for the Next 100 Years

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Cynthia A. Montgomery

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Coca-Cola: A Case Study In Sustainability

Coca-Cola ‘s 600,000 square foot facility in Brampton houses the plant, management team, and warehouse. It has three plastic bottling lines, including a Dasani line; one bag-in-box line producing syrup for national accounts; one pre-mix line for the restaurant business, and one canning line. There are 650 plant operators, sales and equipment service representatives, truck drivers, warehouse employees, management and staff.

Located within the eco-business zone around Toronto Pearson International Airport , Coca-Cola in Brampton joins the local community of businesses to collaborate on green projects. Under the stewardship of Partners in Project Green , businesses participate in programs to reduce energy and resource costs, uncover new business opportunities, and address everyday operational challenges in a green and cost-effective manner. Other companies in this program include Xerox, Unilever , FedEx, Hewlett-Packard , Walmart , Kraft, and LoyaltyOne .

Social and environmental risks are now one of seven business risk categories and are formally embedded into Coca-Cola’s enterprise risk management process . This in turn guides the business processes, including annual planning, three-year business planning, and internal audit planning. As a result, sustainability decisions are becoming an integral part of the business decision making, commercialization and capital management processes, the three-year business planning process, and customer and supplier relationships. Highlighted here are some of their goals, implementation, and progress .

Energy Conservation and Climate Change

The goal is to reduce the overall carbon footprint of the business operations by 15 percent by 2020, as compared to the 2007 baseline.

The Brampton operation converted to an energy efficient lighting system that uses 50% less energy and provides 50% more light. These new fixtures also operate on motion sensors for even greater savings.

In the distribution channels, the company has installed 2000 EMS-55 energy management devices in vending machines. These devices activate lights and adjust cooling based on use, leading to improved energy efficiency by up to 35 percent.

In addition, the company installed 1,400 climate-friendly coolers at the 2010 Olympic Games to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by approximately 5,600 metric tons, the equivalent of taking about 1,200 cars off the road for an entire year.

Finally, 37 heavy-duty hybrid delivery trucks and tractors were introduced to the Canadian fleet in 2008 and 2009. These vehicles improve fuel consumption and reduce emissions by about one third and create less noise and emissions when stopped in traffic. Upgrading the warehouses with energy efficient loading bay doors can also make significant energy savings with pay back period of less than 2 years (see examples from Enerco ).

Water Usage

The goal is to establish a water-sustainable operation to minimize water use and have a water-neutral impact on the local communities by safely returning the amount of water used in the beverages to the local communities and environment.

A 20% reduction in water use, accompanied by an efficiency ratio of 1.62 litres was achieved between 2005 and 2007. Plant teams focused on: 1) reducing the water use ratio; and 2) recycling the water used in operations (wastewater treatment).

To help reach its water usage goals the company developed and used a water conservation toolkit to identify actions that would conserve water. It implemented recycle and reclaim water loops through the plant’s membrane water treatment system. And it installed a new osmotic water recovery system designed to reclaim nearly 11 million litres of water for production. In addition water based container rinsers were replaced with ionized air rinsers and the lubrication system on all production lines was retrofitted to discontinue water use, saving approximately 28 million litres of water annually.

Sustainable Packaging and Recycling

The goals are to: (1) avoid the use of 100,000 metric tons of packaging materials between 2007 and 2010, (2) recycle or recover more than 90% of waste materials at production facilities by 2010, (3) increase recycled content in plastic (PET) bottles to an average of 10% by 2010.

Goal (2) was achieved in 2009, ahead of schedule. The team also implemented a centralized recycling initiative that captures broken, damaged or expired product packaging from satellite facilities to be baled and sold to an industrial recycler.

Investments were made to achieve green innovations in recycling technologies, renewable packaging materials, vending and cooling equipment controls and design, and hybrid trucks.

Among the tools used was a proprietary packaging database to identify opportunities for future packaging material reductions and to benchmark performance against the global Coca-Cola system. See here for more on sustainable packaging .

The Coca-Cola operation in Brampton has shown that there are advantages to thinking “outside the box”. By respecting the finite nature of the earth’s water and resources the operation is implementing innovative business practices and contributing to the sustainability of communities while meeting the expectations of its stakeholders.

This case study is based in part on material provided by Partners in Project Green . Photos courtesy of Partners in Project Green.

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Water, Waste, Energy: Lessons from Coca-Cola in Africa

Africa’s challenge.

The United Nations has set as a goal universal access to “affordable, reliable, and modern energy” sources by 2030 (United Nations, 2015). From the vantage of 2017, this will be no small feat for Africa, where roughly one third of the population lacks access to electricity and more than half rely on biomass for basic energy needs (UNEP, 2017).

The United Nations has similarly set as its goal universal access to “safe and affordable drinking water” by 2030, one of several targets aimed at water and sanitation (United Nations, 2015). Again, this is a steep goal for Africa, where roughly half of the estimated 663 million people worldwide without access to clean water live (WaterAid Global, 2017; JNP, et. al., 2017).

Likewise, the United Nation’s 2030 development targets include the desire to “substantially reduce waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse” (United Nations, 2015). Proliferation—and failure to dispose of—waste adversely affects health while polluting the natural environment, problems that abound in Africa. Together, questions around water, waste, and energy challenge stakeholders on the African continent; but they also present opportunities for innovation. This digest examines two case studies of such innovation through the lens of what is arguably the world’s most recognizable brand: Coca-Cola. 

Coca-Cola in Africa

Coca-Cola has been in Africa since 1928, arriving first in South Africa forty-two years after the beverage was invented in Atlanta, Georgia. Through its franchise bottler model, the “secret formula” from Atlanta was exported to Africa, where it was bottled by independent franchisees who were mandated to meet standards set by the American-based corporation.

Today, Coca-Cola is in all 54 countries in Africa, where it employs more than 70,000 people in 140 bottling and canning plants, 900,000 retail outlets, and at least 3,200 micro-distribution centers (Coca-Cola Africa Foundation, 2014). This makes Coca-Cola one of, if not the, single largest private employer on the continent. Taking into consideration its positive multiplier effect—meaning the informal number of people who are supported as a result of each formal employment opportunity—the company’s reach is even bigger (Moore School of Business, 2005; PwC, 2012; PwC, 2013).

Anyone who has traveled or lived somewhere on the continent knows that it is virtually impossible to journey far enough off the beaten path to find oneself beyond the reach of Coca-Cola. Somehow, in every nook and cranny of the vast continent, you can still find a Coca-Cola product, and often a cold one. This uncanny ubiquity, striking for its contrast to the lack of basic amenities like power and clean water (that you might find there) lends insight into the singularity of this product.

Beyond having a popular product, Coca-Cola’s power rests in its vast distribution model. A bottle of Coca-Cola can—and does—travel from bottling plant to distribution center to small-scale outlet to hawker by the side of the road. That bottle travels by truck, tricycle, tuk-tuk, hand-held cart, and even dugout canoe. The strength of the Coca-Cola system is twofold: 1) along the way, each person engaged in the process makes a small profit, and 2) because of its franchise bottlers, Coca-Cola is considered to be local. And, so it is that in Africa, Coca-Cola is both a global and local commodity.

Coca-Cola’s Commitment to Sustainability

More than just an American corporation that operates overseas, Coca-Cola aims to stay attentive to immediate realities in order to protect its license to operate, mostly through collaboration with its bottlers. Creating marketing campaigns around local holidays, producing local language radio advertisements, and funding local initiatives, all under the umbrella of local bottlers, keeps the outward face of this multinational company recognizably local.

Like other companies in Africa, Coca-Cola began to pay attention to questions around sustainability at the turn of the century, particularly since its core business rests on the availability of water and energy, which were increasingly under threat. But, because Coca-Cola is a multinational company, it is also beholden to global sustainability standards.

The company’s 2020 sustainability goals, established around 2007, are aligned with global best practices, even when these exceed regulations set locally. When it comes to water, Coca-Cola’s primary ingredient, the company pledged to reduce inefficiency, promote healthy freshwater, and replenish the water it uses globally (Coca-Cola Water Report, 2017).

In 2015, the company announced that it had achieved what it calls “water neutrality,” that is, it “safely return[ed] to communities and nature an amount of water equal to what [it] uses in [its] finished beverages” on a global scale (Coca-Cola Water Report, 2017). It did this in large part through in-plant innovations and waste treatment facilities that ensure the water it puts back into the environment is clean. Since 2004, the company has also reduced the amount of water it uses to make a liter sized beverage by 27% (Sustainability Report, 2016).

At the same time, the company has partnered with more than two hundred communities across the globe to increase access to potable water, largely through its umbrella project, RAIN, and largely in Africa (RAIN, 2017). Funded by a company grant of 30 million USD, in addition to money from other donors, RAIN responds to continent-wide water crises in multiple ways (Walsh and Dowding, 2012).

Under RAIN, projects range from extending access to municipal water that, while safe, does not reach enough people, to filtering available, non-potable water, to providing access to clean water where there was none before. There are dozens of technologies employed in these projects, each dependent on immediate realities.

When it comes to energy and climate, Coca-Cola’s corporate goals also align with global benchmarks: In 2013, it pledged to reduce CO2 emissions by 25% throughout its value chain by 2020. Numbers released recently show that emissions have been reduced by 14% since 2010 (Sustainability Report, 2016). Reaching these goals entails enhancing energy management devices within its plants and installing more coolers free of hydrofluorocarbon across the globe (as old ones are replaced).

Presently, there are 81 green initiatives underway across the system, with an additional 50 in the pipeline. Most of these are small-scale solar initiatives that provide supplemental energy to plants. Although wind has the potential to generate far more energy, the capital expenditure needed for wind farms is much higher (Sustainability Report, 2016).

Turning to packaging, the other component that plays into sustainability, Coca-Cola has pledged to reach a 75% recovery rate in developed markets. This means continuing to promote recycling efforts. At the same time, the company is focused on expanding the production of what it calls “plant bottles” (recyclable Polyethylene Terephthalate, or PET, made partially from plants), which saves oil costs. And, since 2008, the company has steadily reduced the weight of its packages, helping lower fuel costs for transport. The most recent numbers note that 60% of all introduced packaging has been either recycled, recovered, or refilled (Sustainability Report, 2016).

Yet, Coca-Cola’s sustainability success stories—of which there are many—sometimes obscure regional differences. The reality is that sustainability efforts lag in Africa. According to internal Coca-Cola tracking, total waste production, energy use, and CO2 emissions across the company’s three African business units have all trended downward since 2010. However, the numbers remain above best-practice levels within the global system.

Unstable regulatory environments, the predominance of small—and therefore less efficient—plants, and under-developed provider sectors all hamper achievement in Africa. In terms of package recovery, while most  levels in Africa were reportedly high in 2015 (the most recent data), they still failed to reach levels achieved in places like Japan, Western Europe, and Canada. It should be noted, however, that package recovery levels exceeded the levels reported in the United States (Sustainability Report, 2016). Shortcomings, in other words, are not unique to Africa.

These numbers suggest there is room for improvement in Africa when it comes to water, waste, and energy. It is that space for possibility on which the company is now focused. At present, some Coca-Cola bottlers are starting to set up small photovoltaic initiatives at individual plants. Others are further along. Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling Company, the lead bottler in Nigeria (which also operates in Europe), has several large co-generation schemes that provide its plants with some independence from an unreliable and limited grid, while reducing carbon output.

Other plants across Africa are considering similar schemes. These are all nascent, often stymied by an immature provider sector, regulatory environments inhospitable to such initiatives (compared to, say, European subsidies), and, in some cases, lack of human resources to do the significant legal, procedural, and ultimately technical legwork needed. But, they are in the pipeline, particularly because energy access is increasingly seen as a threat to operations on the ground.

At the same time, Coca-Cola is focused on packaging recovery. While cultures and systems of waste collection are not firmly in place in Africa, entire upcycling and repurposing industries arise from refuse, sometimes in ways that confound bottlers who need their glass bottles returned, for instance, and often in ways that are degrading and dangerous. Though in most of Africa returnable glass bottles (RGB) remain king, PET (plastic) is making inroads, often adding to waste. In countries where PET is captured, like Rwanda, the plastic bottles are shipped to China for recycling, which often means breaking it down for use as fiber or pellets. South Africa provides an alternate model, described below.

PETCO: Plastic Recycling

Coca-Cola South Africa played a key role in the formation of PETCO, the PET Recycling Company NPC. Established in 2004 as a voluntary consortium of members of the South African PET industry, PETCO “self-regulates” recycling of plastic bottles. In the decade since its creation, PETCO has driven recycling efforts in South Africa to over 50%, reduced landfill storage, and helped lower CO2 levels.

This means there has been an 822% increase in recycling tonnage in South Africa since its creation (Wells). As part of its model, PETCO contracts with the only bottle-to-bottle recycling plant on the continent, where PET is repurposed into food-grade PET, versus PET for use as fiber, and living out PETCO’s motto that “plastic bottles are not trash.”

To achieve these results, PETCO has incubated what it calls “income opportunities” for trash collectors, often called trolleypreneurs, who sprung up on their own to meet a need they saw. In 2016, Dr. Casper Durandt, who serves as both chairman of PETCO and technical manager for Coca-Cola South Africa, estimated the number of people doing this type of work at around 40,000, with about 18% of them scavenging on landfills (Durandt).

Coke and PETCO do not support landfill picking, which is dangerous and unhygienic, though the practice persists. Rather, they support those pickers who process rubbish at the point of consumption. Named for the trolleys they push around the city and their entrepreneurial spirt, these trolleypreneurs earn cash while serving environmental and practical ends.

This work is difficult and degrading, as the folks at Coca-Cola and PETCO are quick to point out; the average trolleypreneur was making about 200-250R, or $20 USD, a day at the time I spoke to Durandt (Durandt). But, in the absence of available employment as well as other viable methods of trash collecting, Coke and PETCO are nevertheless trying to incubate these collectors. They provide reflective vests, safer trolleys, and plastic collection bags, while paying them on debit cards and helping train them in basic business skills.

While PETCO has established a robust model that has the capacity to “close the loop” on packaging, PET use remains secondary to RGB. There is a fierce debate about what is better from an environmental point of view: PET (that can be recycled and created with plant matter) or glass. While glass theoretically retains endless recycling potential, its use requires sanitizing—that uses water; glass is also heavier than plastic.

There is no single answer to this question, since much depends on the distance the bottle travels, whether or not it is reused—and how many times—and other variables. What is clear is that with the rise of GDPs across Africa, more and more consumers will demand one-way (plastic) packaging, increasing the need for sustainable PET use.

EKOCENTER: Energy, Water, and More

Just as PETCO provides an exportable model for Coca-Cola-driven sustainability, Coke’s EKOCENTER—a kiosk/energy hub—does likewise. A two-hour drive from Kigali, the capital of the small, landlocked central African nation of Rwanda, is the flagship center in Ruhunda. There, the 25,000 residents of this rural area can now access things they once lacked: basic consumer goods, purified water, 3G internet access, a regulation soccer field, and a medical center backed by a solar powered generator.

Unlike other Coca-Cola initiatives in Africa, many of which are anonymous, the EKOCENTER is Coca-Cola branded. Inside, young women run the shop, which sells Coke, but also milk and maize, pens and paper, solar panels and toothpaste, and more, alongside a much-used cell-phone charging station.

The Ruhunda location is the model of all that an EKOCENTER can be. Beside the kiosk is a seating area with room for sixty people, space for small-scale food vendors, pit latrines with sanitation stations, and a telecommunications tower. Adjacent is a free-standing water pump that provides both “raw,” municipal water and water that has been purified by reverse osmosis to meet WHO standards. Behind that is a medical clinic frequented by 100 to 200 people daily.

The water pump, kiosk, and telecom tower are powered by a solar system with storage capacity of 13 kilowatts of power. The water pump requires between ½ and 1 kilowatt of power daily, some of which is held as back up for the clinic and some of which is sold back to small-scale entrepreneurs. The fees received help maintain the device, which is monitored remotely, but fixed locally by trained mechanics. At the time I visited, the kiosk was generating 4,000 Euros in monthly revenue with a gross profit of 800 Euros monthly.

The EKOCENTER demonstrates what Coca-Cola often refers to as its immense convening power. It is an example of what Coca-Cola calls its tri-sector partnership between business, civil society, and government. As of June 2016, Coca-Cola had placed more than 100 EKOCENTERS on the continent, with 35 in Rwanda alone.

Lessons Learned

When it comes to water, waste, and energy, no one-size solution can work across a continent as vast as Africa. Still, there are several lessons that emerge from these two case studies:

Job Creation. Any solution aimed at tackling water, waste, and energy challenges should include a job creation component. Multiple analysts across these domains have made this point: employment is central to any enduring development model (Brew-Hammond, 2297). And here, of course, is where a company like Coca-Cola, with its vast employment potential, comes in.

Serving Multiple Bottom Lines.  In the Coca-Cola system every single person who touches the supply chain makes a profit, however small. So too could those who do work aimed at tackling the world’s biggest problems. Coca-Cola understands that small profits made along the way, if properly harnessed, become the seeds of future profits and, in the best-case scenario, provide an escape from poverty. Coca-Cola’s EKOCENTERS (whose female employees are often participants in the company’s larger initiative to empower 5 million women by 2020) and PETCO, that incubates workers, are prime examples of the type of scheme that pairs income generation with sustainability work.

Corporate Involvement. These lessons also call for a willingness to see multinational corporations as potential partner agents for change. At the same time, and differently, the lessons make clear that in order for Coca-Cola, or any corporation, to rise to these challenges, it must work hard to determine that its activities are truly supporting sustainability, rather than being green window dressing. These lessons also call for a continued transfer of knowledge across the Coca-Cola (and other) corporate systems and, if possible, an extension of providers (whether around energy, water, or recycling) across geographies to expand possibilities.

Balance. Water, waste, and energy in Africa, when examined via the lens of Coca-Cola, call to mind the balance that should always be at the front of any sustainability discussion. Where we might lower carbon production with reusable glass bottles, for example, we might simultaneously expend more water. Where we might get rid of manual bottle cleaning, we might lose employment opportunities. Where we hinge our hopes at electrifying the continent around a corporation, we may undermine governments. Where we rely on a beverage company’s initiatives, we may extend the consumption of sugary drinks to those whose diets are already compromised.

The matrix around these questions is complex; the answers far from easy. The implications for the energy, sustainability, public health, and policy certainly require more exploration. 

The research featured here was supported by grant funding from the Kleinman Center. The author’s research, opinions, and insights do not represent the voice of the Kleinman Center. The author wishes to acknowledge the helpful comments of Dr. James R. Hines.

Adebayo Bello, Ibrahim, Muhamad Norshafiq bin Ismail, and Nassereldeen A Kabbashi. “Solid Waste Management in Africa: A Review.” International Journal of Waste Resources. 6:2. 2016, page 2. Accessed July 17, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/2252-5211.1000216 

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Coca-Cola. “Water Use Ratio,” “Total Waste Ratio,” “BU Recovery and refill in unit cases,” “Energy Use Ratio,” “CO2 Emissions,” and “Total Energy Use.” Internal data from Coca-Cola. Accessed July, 2017, Atlanta.

Coca-Cola Africa Foundation, Infographic, 2014.

Coca-Cola FEMSA. “Informe De Sostenibilidad Coca-Cola Femsa.” Accessed August 17, 2017. https://img.coca-colafemsa.com/assets/files/es/Sostenibilidad/Coca-Cola-FEMSA-Informe-de-Sostenibilidad-2016.pdf

Coca-Cola Journey. “RAIN: the Replenish Africa Initiative.” Accessed July 31, 2017. http://www.coca-colacompany.com/stories/rain-the-replenish-africa-initiative

Coca-Cola Journey. “Sustainability Update: Energy Efficiency and Climate Protection.” Accessed July 10, 2017. http://www.coca-colacompany.com/our-company/sustainability-update-energy-efficiency-and-climate-protection

Coca-Cola Journey. “Water Stewardship and Replenish Report: Improving our Water Efficiency.” Accessed July 31, 2017. http://www.coca-colacompany.com/stories/setting-a-new-goal-for-water-efficiency

Coca-Cola Journey. “Water Stewardship and Replenish Report: Collaborating to Replenish the Water we use.” Accessed July 31, 2017. http://www.coca-colacompany.com/stories/collaborating-to-replenish-the-water-we-use

“Coca-Cola European Partners closing in on 100% renewables target.” July 3, 2017. Edie.net. Accessed July 31, 2017. https://www.edie.net/news/10/Coca-Cola-European-Partners-closing-in-on-100–renewables-target/

Gates, Melinda. “What Nonprofits can Learn from Coca-Cola.” TED talk. September, 2010 at TEDxChange. Accessed July 17, 2017. https://www.ted.com/talks/melinda_french_gates_what_nonprofits_can_learn_from_coca_cola/transcript

Hoornweg, Daniel, Bhada-Tata, Perinaz. “What a Waste: A Global Review of Solid Waste Management.” Urban development Series; Knowledge papers. No. 15. 2012. World Bank, Washington, DC. Accessed July 17, 2017. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/17388 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”

Interview with Casper Durandt, Coca-Cola offices, Parktown Wednesday, July 6, 2016.

Interview with Alistair Schorn at PETCO, May 2017.

JMP, WHO, UNICEF, “Progress on Drinking Water, Sanitation and Hygiene.” 2017. Accessed July 17, 2017. https://washdata.org/

Karekezi, Stephen, Waeni Kithyoma. “Renewable energy strategies for rural Africa: is a PV-led renewable energy strategy the right approach for providing modern energy to the rural poor of sub-Saharan Africa?”  Energy Policy . 30 (2002) 1071-1086.

Mahama, Amadu. “2012 International Year for Sustainable Energy for all: African Frontrunnership in Rural Electrification.”  Energy Policy.  48 (2012) 76-82.

Maruf Hasan. “Sustainable Supply Chain Management Practices and Operational Performance.”  American Journal of Industrial and Business Management.  2013, 3, 42-48.

PETCO. “Plastic Bottles are not Trash.” Accessed July 31, 2017. http://petco.co.za/

“PM Praises Coca-Cola’s Solar Pant.”  The Sun Online . July 4, 2017. Accessed July 31, 2017. http://fijisun.com.fj/2017/07/04/pm-praises-coca-colas-solar-plant/

PwC. “The Coca-Cola System’s Contribution to Development Goals in Tanzania.” June, 2013. 

PwC. “The Coca-Cola System’s Contribution to National Development Goals in South Africa.” November, 2012. 

Sebitosi, A.B. and P. Pillay. “Grappling with a half-hearted policy: The case of renewable energy and the environment in South Africa.”  Energy Policy . 36 (2008) 2513- 2516.

The Moore School of Business. “The Economic Impact of the Coca-Cola System on South Africa.” University of South Carolina. March 2005.

UNEP Press Release, “New Atlas shows energy potential of Africa and opportunities for investment to meet Africa’s energy needs,” May 4, 2017. Accessed July 17, 2017. http://www.unep.org/newscentre/new-atlas-shows-energy-potential-africa-and-opportunities-investment-meet-africa%E2%80%99s-energy-needs

“United Nations Sustainable Development Goals: Goal 6.” Adopted 2015. Accessed July 31, 2017.  http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/water-and-sanitation/

“United Nations Sustainable Development Goals: Goal 7.” Adopted 2015. Accessed July 31, 2017. http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/energy/

“United Nations Sustainable Development Goals: Goal 12.” Adopted 2015. Accessed July 31, 2017. http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-consumption-production/

Walsh, H. and Dowding, T.J. “Sustainability and the Coca-Cola company: the global water crisis and Coca-Cola’s business case for water stewardship.”  International Journal of Business Insights & Transformation . Vol. 4. Special Issue. 2012. 106-118.

WaterAid Global. “Statistics.” Accessed July 10, 2017. http://www.wateraid.org/what-we-do/the-crisis/statistics#crisis

Witt Wells, “South Africa’s PET Plastic Recycling Rates Close in on European Standards,” Apr 11, 2017. www.coca-colacompany.com/coca-cola-unbottled/south-africa-recycled-2-billion-pet-bottles-in-2017

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Coca-Cola among brands greenwashing over packaging, report says

Research ‘exposes litany of misleading claims’ by household names, including Coca-Cola and Unilever

Claims about plastic packaging being eco-friendly made by big brands, including Coca-Cola and Unilever, are misleading greenwashing, according to a report.

The Changing Markets Foundation says claims that companies are intercepting and using “ocean-bound” or “recyclable” plastic to tackle the plastic pollution crisis are some of the most common examples of greenwashing.

The claims are made with little proof about how the products address the crisis in plastic pollution, their report says. It says this is done to obscure the real impact of plastic from consumers.

George Harding-Rolls, campaign manager at Changing Markets Foundations, said: “Our latest investigation exposes a litany of misleading claims from household names consumers should be able to trust. This is just the tip of the iceberg and it is of crucial importance that regulators take this issue seriously.

“The industry is happy to gloat its green credentials with little substance on the one hand, while continuing to perpetuate the plastic crisis on the other. We are calling out greenwashing so the world can see that voluntary action has led to a market saturated with false claims.”

The analysis, which is being presented on the CMF website, says claims by Kim Kardashian’s clothing company Skims on its compostable underwear packaging, which states “I am not plastic”, are undermined by the small print saying the product is plastic type 4 or LDPE (Low-Density Polyethylene).

Coca-Cola, the report says, has spent millions promoting an innovation which says that its bottles are 25% marine plastic, but does not mention that the company is the world’s biggest plastic polluter.

The makers of Mentos mints, Perfetti Van Melle, make grand eco claims about new cardboard box packaging, the report says. But they fail to mention the packaging is an unrecyclable composite material made out of card, aluminium and plastic.

In Spain, after the EU ban on plastic cutlery, the biggest supermarket chain, Mercadona, rebranded the cutlery as “reusable” instead of providing alternatives.

The report singled out Tesco for its claims that its flexible plastic packaging is new, improved and “recyclable”. But to be recycled, customers have to take the packaging back to larger stores – and even then it is unlikely to be recycled. Instead, it will almost certainly be exported, incinerated or sent to landfill, the report says.

Bottles of Procter & Gamble’s Head and Shoulders shampoo are being promoted as made out of “beach plastic”, but the bottle is dyed blue, meaning it cannot be recycled further, the report says.

Unilever has replaced recyclable PET bottles of washing liquid with pouches as part of its push to encourage refills. But the pouches are not recyclable and only contain two refills, the report says.

The examples show brands are presenting materials and selling products claiming they are better for the environment when they are either difficult to recycle, not recyclable at all, or are using just a small fraction of “ocean-bound” plastic collected through various clean-ups.

Sian Sutherland, A Plastic Planet co-founder, said: “Plastic is now a very powerful and emotional word. We all feel the plastic guilt when we fill our shopping baskets. Brands have been exploiting this over recent years, using age-old marketing techniques that are totally misleading or downright fake, pretending that the problem is being fixed when actually it is getting worse, with plastic production set to treble by 2040.

“Greenwash.com exposes these false green claims for what they are: daylight robbery of the consumer’s right and ability to judge the product.”

The Changing Markets Foundation, along with Zero Waste Europe, is calling for closed-loop recycling systems and effective deposit return systems to tackle the plastic pollution problem. “We must embrace systemic solutions, such as absolute reductions in plastic packaging and mandatory deposit return systems,” they said.

Plastic packaging in the UK makes up nearly 70% of all of the country’s plastic waste. Less than 10% of everyday plastic, including plastic packaging, gets recycled.

Tesco said: “All of the soft plastic we collect will be sorted in the UK from later this year, ensuring it stays out of landfill and is recycled into a range of items. We welcomed recent legislative measures to increase the consistency of kerbside collections for plastic recycling.”

Tesco said it was not the case that its soft plastic ended up in landfill or incinerated. The company said since 2021 it was finding a use for the soft plastic packaging it collects in stores, and has trialled recycling soft plastic into cheese packaging.

Coca Cola said: “We don’t want to see any of our packaging end up where it shouldn’t and we are working hard to be part of the solution.

“All of our bottles in Great Britain are 100% recyclable and we aim to collect and recycle a bottle or can for every one we sell by 2030 globally. In 2019, about 300 sample Coca-Cola bottles were developed using recovered and recycled marine plastics, with the aim to demonstrate that one day, ocean debris could be used in recycled packaging. Innovative trials like this are essential to finding scalable solutions to reduce the amount of packaging we use.”

Procter & Gamble said: “Our Head & Shoulders ocean clean bottle was one of the first steps on our ongoing responsible beauty journey and helped us to learn about the use of PCR within our products. This pack is no longer available to buy in the UK but we can confirm that it was recyclable. We don’t yet have all the answers but remain committed to ensuring Head & Shoulders is a force for good within beauty .”

A spokesperson for Perfetti Van Melle was not available to comment. The other brands named did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

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Coca-Cola Southwest Beverages takes its sustainability goals to a new level

The company intends to recycle every bottle it sells and is helping communities recycle plastic, conserve water and reduce litter..

By Terry Wagner

9:01 AM on Apr 23, 2024 CDT

Arca Continental Coca-Cola Southwest Beverages (CCSWB), one of the nation’s largest bottlers of Coca-Cola products, is deeply committed to sustainability practices that benefit both the environment and the community. Currently, a remarkable seven out of every 10 bottles sold by CCSWB are recycled, but its ultimate goal is to keep every single one of them out of the waste stream. Big ambitions are typical of the Dallas-based company, which takes seriously its roles both as a corporate citizen and environmental steward.

“We have already met or exceeded a good number of our 2030 goals on water, climate and waste, so we are looking forward to set new goals and always challenge the organization to continue improving,” says CCSWB Director of Sustainability Abraham Tueme.

Since 2020, CCSWB has reduced its carbon emissions by 46 million pounds, collected over 202 million pounds of plastic for recycling and reduced by 13% the energy required to manufacture its products. It buys 100% renewable energy across all Texas-based deregulated locations — the first long-term energy contract of this size among North American Coca-Cola bottlers.

Many of these efforts were inspired by The Coca-Cola Co.’s World Without Waste initiative, introduced in 2018 to help solve the global plastic waste crisis.

The company also promotes sustainability in communities throughout Texas by providing recycling opportunities and educating the public. During the 2023 NCAA Final Four, CCSWB had a presence at both the men’s and women’s tournaments in Houston and Dallas. In Dallas, the CCSWB team set up special SmartSort containers throughout the American Airlines Center to expand their recyclables capacity around the stadium, while supplementary recycling bins were placed at NRG Stadium in Houston. Plus, CCSWB increased awareness among tournament attendees with a sustainability education center at the Final Four fan festival.

“Partnering with Coca-Cola Southwest Beverages to bring SmartSort Technologies to American Airlines Center has provided a substantial step towards meeting our sustainability goals,” says Chief Operating Officer and General Manager of American Airlines Center Dave Brown.

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Additionally, CCSWB keeps accelerating the collection of recyclable bottles at American Airlines Center. It installed nine more SmartSort bins at the arena last year, bringing the total to 21. Powered by artificial intelligence, the machines use cameras to identify what people are holding in their hands and indicate where to deposit them. “As the first arena to implement this technology, our goal is to lessen the arena’s carbon footprint for a better, greener future,” says Brown.

“We’ve been able to significantly reduce the contamination rate to practically nonexistent, which helps a lot with the operations aspect,” Tueme points out. “We hope to continue working with American Airlines Center on their vision to add a compost stream.”

CCSWB even experimented with different ads to determine which was most successful at boosting public cooperation with the program. The winner was an animation that shows a bottle being crushed and emerging as a new bottle.

At the annual Sips & Sounds Summer Festival launched last year in Austin, CCSWB brought sustainability to the community by rewarding concertgoers who traded in their plastic bottles with tickets that could be exchanged for festival merchandise, such as sunglasses, backpacks and bandanas. The event was such a success that CCSWB not only plans to do it again at Sips & Sounds 2024, but it also extended its efforts to support Fiesta San Antonio.

Internally, CCSWB prioritizes sustainability education and engagement through initiatives like Sustainability Week. “The focus is to raise awareness within our organization of the role that everybody gets to play in building a sustainable future,” Tueme explains. “We have webinars and training and partner with Keep Texas Beautiful to do cleanups around the state.”

In regards to sustainable packaging, CCSWB has made huge strides. In 2021, the company became the first Coca-Cola bottler in the U.S. to use an average of 50% recycled PET (rPET) plastic in its bottles, a goal achieved nine years ahead of its initial goal of 2030. PET (polyethylene terephthalate) is a type of plastic that is entirely recyclable and requires less energy to produce, thus cutting greenhouse emissions as well as waste. As part of CCSWB’s recycled PET plastic usage, all of CCSWB’s 13.2- and 20-ounce bottles of Coke, Diet Coke, Coke Zero and DASANI water are made entirely of recycled PET content.

“We are taking it one step further and doing the same for secondary packaging,” Tueme says, referring to using recycled content for the flexible plastic that wraps around larger cases of Coca-Cola products. “It’s not the same color as virgin plastic. It might look a little different, so we are letting people know that this is recycled content and we are not creating more waste.”

Water conservation is another of CCSWB’s goals; since last year it has been returning twice as much water as it uses back to the environment. The company’s community partnerships have been a significant support in achieving its water conservation goals . CCSWB collaborates with the Nature Conservancy, BEF, Ducks Unlimited and other agencies on a variety of community projects, including building levees to prevent flooding and divert this precious resource back into the Trinity River.

Additionally, the company is one of many Coca-Cola bottlers that distributes empty ingredient barrels for use to collect rainwater, with its largest partner being the Galveston Bay Foundation, where it has donated more than 3,000 barrels since 2013 with the capacity to capture more than 3.4 million gallons of water every year.

CCSWB regularly collaborates with nonprofits on all its sustainability projects, particularly chapters of Keep America Beautiful/Keep Texas Beautiful. For instance, it worked with the City of McAllen and Keep McAllen Beautiful to collect more than 24 million plastic bottles — a case study that was shared nationally as an example to other partners of Keep America Beautiful. In addition, CCSWB has planted trees across Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Austin and the Travis County Watershed.

“We don’t just talk the talk,” Tueme says. “Sustainability is something that extends from operations through community involvement. It’s truly all-encompassing and Coca-Cola Southwest Beverages just shines in all of those areas. It’s hard work, but it’s very rewarding.”

Terry Wagner

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Coca-cola europacific partners plc's dividend analysis, exploring the dividend performance and sustainability of coca-cola europacific partners plc.

Coca-Cola Europacific Partners PLC ( NASDAQ:CCEP ) recently announced a dividend of $0.74 per share, payable on 2024-05-23, with the ex-dividend date set for 2024-05-09. As investors look forward to this upcoming payment, the spotlight also shines on the company's dividend history, yield, and growth rates. Using the data from GuruFocus, let's delve into Coca-Cola Europacific Partners PLC's dividend performance and assess its sustainability.

What Does Coca-Cola Europacific Partners PLC Do?

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Coca-Cola Europacific Partners PLC operates as the second-largest bottling partner in the Coca-Cola system by volume, trailing only behind Coca-Cola Femsa. It primarily serves developed Europe, which accounts for 80% of its 2023 revenue and EBIT, and Australasia, making up the remaining 20%. In 2023, CCEP announced its planned acquisition of Coca-Cola Beverages Philippines from TCCC. The company sold approximately 3.3 billion unit cases of beverages in 2023, representing about 9% of the global Coke system volume. TCCC holds a 19% equity stake in CCEP, while Olive Partners owns 36%, and the remaining 45% is publicly traded.

A Glimpse at Coca-Cola Europacific Partners PLC's Dividend History

Coca-Cola Europacific Partners PLC has upheld a reliable dividend payment record since 1987, with dividends currently distributed bi-annually. Below is a chart showing annual Dividends Per Share for tracking historical trends.

Breaking Down Coca-Cola Europacific Partners PLC's Dividend Yield and Growth

As of today, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners PLC boasts a 12-month trailing dividend yield of 2.73% and a 12-month forward dividend yield of 2.82%, indicating anticipated increases in dividend payments over the next year. Over the past three years, the annual dividend growth rate was an impressive 29.40%. Based on Coca-Cola Europacific Partners PLC's dividend yield and five-year growth rate, the 5-year yield on cost of Coca-Cola Europacific Partners PLC stock as of today is approximately 2.73%.

The Sustainability Question: Payout Ratio and Profitability

To evaluate the sustainability of the dividend, it's crucial to consider the company's payout ratio. As of 2023-12-31, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners PLC's dividend payout ratio stands at 0.50, suggesting a balanced approach to distributing earnings and retaining funds for future growth. The company's profitability rank is 8 out of 10, indicating strong earnings potential relative to its peers. This is supported by a decade of positive net income , further solidifying its robust profitability.

Growth Metrics: The Future Outlook

Coca-Cola Europacific Partners PLC's growth rank of 8 out of 10 suggests a promising growth trajectory. The company's revenue per share and 3-year revenue growth rate highlight a strong revenue model, with an average annual increase of 19.70%. This growth rate outperforms approximately 78.43% of global competitors. Furthermore, the 3-year EPS growth rate and 5-year EBITDA growth rate reinforce the company's capability to sustain dividends, outperforming 71.43% and 67.65% of global competitors, respectively.

Considering Coca-Cola Europacific Partners PLC's consistent dividend payments, robust dividend growth rate, balanced payout ratio, and strong profitability and growth metrics, the company presents a compelling case for dividend investors. The upcoming dividend payment, along with the historical performance, suggests that Coca-Cola Europacific Partners PLC remains a sustainable choice for those seeking reliable income streams. For further exploration of high-dividend yield opportunities, GuruFocus Premium users can utilize the High Dividend Yield Screener .

This article, generated by GuruFocus, is designed to provide general insights and is not tailored financial advice. Our commentary is rooted in historical data and analyst projections, utilizing an impartial methodology, and is not intended to serve as specific investment guidance. It does not formulate a recommendation to purchase or divest any stock and does not consider individual investment objectives or financial circumstances. Our objective is to deliver long-term, fundamental data-driven analysis. Be aware that our analysis might not incorporate the most recent, price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative information. GuruFocus holds no position in the stocks mentioned herein.

This article first appeared on GuruFocus .

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Cultivating Ingredients Better

The quality and integrity of our products depends on a sustainable supply chain with successful and thriving farming communities and ecosystems. 

We believe sustainable agriculture offers solutions to interrelated issues such as human rights, water security, climate resilience, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction and women’s empowerment. We are working with our suppliers and a range of partners to create systemic change in our agricultural supply chain.

64% of our global priority ingredient volumes were sustainably sourced to our leader standard*, in line with our Principles for Sustainable Agriculture (PSA)

*Leader standard represents supply volume verified to a company-approved, third-party validation that is aligned with our PSA.

Sustainable Ingredients

We source a wide range of ingredients from agricultural raw materials such as sugarcane, sugar beet, corn, fruits, coffee, tea and soybeans from complex global supply chains and an expanding range of new ingredients like nuts, herbs and dairy.

Ensuring these ingredients are produced in a way that respects farmworkers and their communities while also protecting ecosystems is important to us.

Principles for Sustainable Agriculture (PSA)

We are committed to working with our suppliers to promote sustainable agricultural practices and build supplier capabilities to meet the standards for human and workplace rights, environmental protection and responsible farm management.

Engaging our suppliers

We do not buy agricultural raw materials directly from farms, but mostly processed and refined ingredients from suppliers. Therefore, it is very important to us to work with our suppliers to achieve our vision of sustainable agriculture and to work with them to engage their farm base, with an emphasis on collaboration and continuous improvement.  

We are exploring ways to integrate sustainable agriculture issues in our supplier audit procedures, for example when we audit our Supplier Guiding Principles and food quality requirements at the processing facilities.

We are also committed to collaboration across the wider industry and support credible third-party standards to simplify assurance and certifications for the farmers in our supply chain. For example, the Farm Sustainability Assessment of the Sustainable Agriculture Initiative (SAI) Platform, the Bonsucro sustainable cane standard and Rainforest Alliance certifications are three of the leading standards we support.  

In addition, we engage directly with farmers in key sourcing regions to help address material issues in our agricultural supply chain.

To provide greater insight and transparency of our ingredient supply chain, please find here a list of Tier 1 suppliers, representing the top 80% of global spend for our 4 top priority ingredients by volume, being sugar (sugar cane and sugar beet), corn (HFCS) and orange juice.

Connections to Other Sustainability Priorities

Our sustainable agriculture strategy is linked to our other priority sustainability workstreams including water, climate change, waste, women’s empowerment and human rights.

Climate Change

As climate change leads to more erratic and extreme weather, sustainable agricultural practices play a vital role in promoting resilience across our supply chain and in the communities that provide our agricultural ingredients.

Around 92% of our bluewater footprint is related to the ingredients used in our products. Through our sustainable agriculture principles and standards we support better water management across the farm, for example by enhancing soil organic matter to hold more moisture, improving soil structure to help prevent flooding and erosion and by improving irrigation efficiency. This also mitigates the effects of drought and supports the resilience of farmers and farming communities.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Agriculture is a source of greenhouse gas emissions and accounts for 10-15% of our carbon footprint. The practices encouraged in our Principles for Sustainable Agriculture are designed to reduce those emissions and to support healthy soils that ultimately will be capable of sequestering and storing carbon.

Animal Health & Welfare

Our business is working constantly to offer consumers new, great-tasting products. We are actively working with our global dairy businesses and suppliers on implementing relevant farm standards and procedures and to develop continuous improvement plans.

Together, we have worked with internal and external stakeholders to develop our first Animal Health and Welfare principles. We also collaborate with other companies in the SAI-Sustainable Dairy Partnership to develop an industry-wide dairy sustainability model.

Human Rights

Respecting human rights in our business and supply chain is a core value of The Coca‑Cola Company. We use human rights due diligence to proactively identify and manage risks to people in our agricultural supply chain. As part of this process, we have conducted 20+ human rights studies in key countries that supply sugar, one of our biggest commodities, to our company. We identified human rights risks, particularly in small, independent farms and with third-party labor contractors and have undertaken specific remediation efforts and actions to integrate this knowledge into the policies and practices of mills and farms in our supply chain.

Women's Empowerment

Women are significant contributors to the Coca‑Cola system around the world, including in our agriculture supply chain, where women play significant roles in production and post-harvest processing. We are building on the momentum created by our decade-long 5by20® program and working toward a shared future that enables access to more equal opportunities. 

In 2022, the Coca‑Cola system spent approximately $900 million with diverse Tier 1 suppliers in the United States. 

Additional Sustainable Agriculture Resources

2023 CDP Forests Response

2022 CDP Forests Response

2021 CDP Forests Response

Principles for Sustainable Agriculture

Principles for Sustainable Agriculture Supplier Guide

Supplier Guiding Principles

Sustainable Ingredients Policy

Human Rights Report

Summary Human Rights Sugar Report

Sugar Supply Chain Studies

Responsible Land Acquisition Guidance

Costa Coffee Responsible Sourcing

Innocent Sustainable Business

Animal Health and Welfare Guiding Principles

Fairlife Animal Welfare

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