How Coca-Cola Gives Water Back to Nature
The Coca-Cola Company and its global bottling partners (the Coca-Cola system) today announced they have met their goal to replenish.
In other words, it has given equivalent amount of water used in their global sales volume back to nature and communities. Based on this achievement, Coca-Cola says it has become the first Fortune 500 company to publicly claim achieving such an aggressive water replenishment target.
The Coca-Cola system also announced progress against its water efficiency goal. The company and its bottling partners improved water use efficiency by 2.5 percent from 2014 to 2015, adding to a cumulative 27 percent improvement since 2004.
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Based on a global water use assessment validated by LimnoTech and Deloitte, and conducted in association with The Nature Conservancy (TNC), the Coca-Cola system returned an estimated 191.9 billion liters of water to nature and communities in 2015 through community water projects, equaling the equivalent of 115 percent of the water used in Coca-Cola’s beverages last year.
“This achievement marks a moment of pride for Coca-Cola and our partners,” said Muhtar Kent, chairman and CEO, The Coca-Cola Company.
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The Coca-Cola system has achieved its water replenishment goals through 248 community water partnership projects in 71 countries focused on safe water access, watershed protection and water for productive use.
In many cases, projects also provide access to sanitation and education, help improve local livelihoods, assist communities with adapting to climate change, improve water quality, enhance biodiversity, engage on policy and build awareness on water issues.
Coca-Cola’s replenishment strategy supports the company’s overall water goal to safely return to communities and nature an amount of water equal to what is used in its beverages and their production.
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On the production side, the Coca-Cola system returned approximately 145.8 billion liters of water used in its manufacturing processes back to local watersheds near our bottling plants through treated wastewater in 2015.
Coca-Cola collaborates on replenish projects with governments, civil society and other members of the private sector.
Some of the many organizations Coca-Cola partners with include Global Environment & Technology Foundation (GETF), Millennium Challenge Corporation, TNC, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), UN-Habitat, United States Agency for International Development (USAID), WaterAid, Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor (WSUP), Water for People, WWF, and World Vision.
Replenish projects work to balance, or offset, the direct water use of The Coca-Cola Company and its bottling partners across operations in more than 200 countries.
The water use is inclusive of water used within manufacturing as well as finished beverages, which includes water from fountain sales.
The water footprint of growing agricultural ingredients sourced by the Coca-Cola system is not included in this goal. However, sustainable water practices are part of Coca-Cola’s Sustainable Agriculture Guiding Principles required for suppliers.
The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE: KO) is the world’s leading beverage company.
