ATLANTA – The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE: KO) has published its seventh systemwide Sustainability Review, entitled Our Commitment to Making a Positive Difference in the World. The Review, which releases 25 sustainability goals across seven focus areas for the Company and its bottling partners and also reports the Company’s sustainability strategy and progress, is available online at:www.sustainability.theCoca-Colacompany.com
The Sustainability Review profiles the Company’s and its more than 300 bottling partners’ efforts to grow business in economically, environmentally and socially sustainable ways. It was created using stakeholder feedback and the disclosure requirements of the Global Reporting Initiative, the United Nations Global Compact and the CEO Water Mandate. The Review includes summaries of Company and bottling partner performance and progress across seven core areas key toCoca-Cola’s business sustainability: Beverage Benefits; Active Healthy Living; Community; Energy Efficiency and Climate Protection; Sustainable Packaging; Water Stewardship; and Workplace.
Performance highlights from the 2009/2010 Sustainability Review include:
Beverage Benefits:
- Launched more than 180 low- and no-calorie drinks in 2009, increasing the low- and no-calorie beverage portfolio to more than 800 beverage products.
- Introduced a sleek “mini can” that allows consumers to enjoy Coca-Cola beverages while managing their portions.
Active Healthy Living:
- Sponsored approximately 150 physical activity and nutrition education programs in nearly 100 countries.
- Supported First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! Initiative along with a coalition of food and beverage manufacturers pledging to cut 1.5 trillion calories from their combined product portfolios in the U.S. by the end of 2015.
- Committed to place calorie information on the front of nearly all packages by end of 2011.
- Announced and implemented Global School Beverage Guidelines.
Community:
- Announced “5 BY 20” initiative, a 10-year global commitment to empower 5 million women inside and outside the Coca-Cola system by 2020.
- Launched Haiti Hope Project, a five-year, $7.5 million program to double the income of 25,000 Haitian mango farmers; raise the standard of living for the farmers; develop sustainable farming practices; plant new mango trees; and improve the participation of women in fruit production.
- Launched Project Nurture, a program designed to enable more than 50,000 small fruit farmers to double their income by 2014. This four-year, $11.5 million partnership with Technoserve and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation invites mango and passion fruit farmers in Uganda and Kenya to be suppliers to the Coca-Cola system for the first time, providing fruit for locally produced juices in the Coca-Cola portfolio.
Energy Efficiency and Climate Protection:
- Improved energy use efficiency 13 percent since 2004 and reduced absolute emissions from manufacturing operations in developed countries by 8 percent since 2004.
- Advanced energy efficiency of cooling equipment with installation of some 3.1 million intelligent energy management devices to date, reducing energy consumption by monitoring energy use on refrigeration units.
- Placed more than 127,000 HFC-free refrigeration systems, bringing total placement to more than 240,000 units. Working to phase out the use of HFCs in all new cold drink equipment as of 2015.
Sustainable Packaging:
- Delivered 2.5 billion PlantBottle® packaging bottles in nine major markets while working to advance the use of PlantBottle packaging in every bottle sold by 2020.
- Avoided the use of approximately 85,000 metric tons of primary packaging through systemwide packaging efficiency efforts, resulting in estimated cost savings of more than $100 million.
- Supported the direct recovery of 36 percent of the bottles and cans placed into the market by the Coca-Cola system.
Water Stewardship:
- Achieved a 13 percent improvement in water use efficiency since 2004, using an average of 2.36 liters of water to make one liter of beverage.
- Announced expansion of global partnership with USAID with additional joint investment of $12.7 million focused on watershed management, water supply and sanitation, hygiene promotion and productive water use.
- Committed an additional $10 million to address water-related challenges in communities across Eastern Europe and Eurasia with UNDP.
- Since 2005, engaged in more than 250 community water partnership projects in more than 70 countries, replenishing the equivalent of 22 percent of the water used in the Coca-Colasystem’s finished beverages. This marks positive progress toward goal to replenish to nature and communities an amount of water equivalent to what is used in all finished beverages by 2020.
- Launched systemwide water resource sustainability standard requiring each of the more than 900 bottling plants to evaluate the sustainability of the water resources used to produce beverages and develop a source water protection plan by 2013.
Workplace:
- Created more than 3,000 Micro Distribution Centers to date, employing more than 13,500 people across Africa. This model in Africa creates jobs, promotes entrepreneurship and strengthens local communities.
- Named one of the Best Companies to Work For by the Great Place to Work Institute in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Chile, France, Great Britain, Mexico and Spain.
- Launched a mandatory Workplace Rights policy online training course.
- Continued to improve workplace safety programs through development of mandatory safety training for all Company associates.
The Review is printed in very limited numbers on Mohawk Options PC 100, which is manufactured using 100 percent renewable wind energy, composed of 100 percent recycled content and FSC-certified to well-managed forestry standards. An interactive website is available with information about the Coca-Cola system’s sustainability performance, videos from Company leadership and reports from bottling partners and Company business units. The Review also can be downloaded by section or in its entirety at this website: www.sustainability.theCoca-Colacompany.com. The Company seeks dialogue around this report and encourages feedback from its key stakeholders, associates, bottling partners, customers, consumers and community members. The Company is committed to developing greater transparency in its reporting and improving the quality and quantity of the data reported. Feedback on the report may be sent to: sustainability@na.ko.com
