Coca Cola Set to Replenish all the Water it uses for Beverage Bottling by 2015


08/26/2015



Coca Cola and its partners are slated to meet their 2020 water replenishment target 5 years ahead of schedule. The US based multinational announced this on Wednesday.

Coca Cola will meet its target of replenishing the equivalent of an estimated 94 percent of the water used in its finished beverages with the sale volume of 2014 as the base figure. The company documents state that Coca Cola has been able to inject an estimated 153.6 billion litres of water fresh water since 2004, when the company initiated the program, into the eco system and into the community from where it had uses the water for making the beverages and for bottling purposes.

The company does this through 209 community water projects in 61 countries.

In 2014, Coca Cola replenished treated waste water to the volume of approximately 126.7 billion litres that was used in its manufacturing processes back to communities and nature. The pace of water replenishment back into nature would soon make the leading global beverage company the first to achieve the target of recycling and replenishing all the water that it uses for bottling back into nature.

“While we have made significant progress toward making that goal a reality, we are more intent than ever to give back the equivalent of all the water that we use to communities and nature. And we will continue to do so after we meet the 100 percent goal,” says a document of the company.

The company has included this program in its CSR activities.

“There is no resource more precious to human life and the health of our global ecosystems and economies than water. As a consumer of water, the Coca-Cola system has a special responsibility to protect this shared resource. This is why we set an aspirational goal of being water neutral by 2020,” Chairman and CEO, of the Coca-Cola Company, Muhtar Kent, said. 

“While we have made significant progress toward making that goal a reality, we are more intent than ever to give back the equivalent of all the water that we use to communities and nature. And we will continue to do so after we meet the 100 percent goal,” he added.

A part of this water replenishment initiative is done through diverse, locally focused community water projects. Each of the projects are organized to achieve pre set targets and objectives like providing or improving access to safe water and sanitation, protecting watersheds, supporting water conservation and raising awareness on critical local water issues.

As Coca-Cola’s business continues to grow each year, the community projects also help the company to balance additional sales volume by addressing the local source water vulnerabilities and thus preparing for fulfilment of additional water requirement to suit business needs and then replenishing the same from where it came – nature. 

The Coca Cola also engages the bottling partners into the projects and the major onus of creating sustainable water replenishment project rests with the business partners of the company.

The ambitious target of replenishing all the water that the company uses for bottling and preparing of the beverages back into nature was initiated in 2007 and a target of achieving it was set at 2020.

Through this initiative, Coca Cola has partnered with governments, civil society and other members of the private sector.

(Source:www.businesswire.com)