2Sustain

Late last month, the Coca-Cola Company announced the release of its fifth annual sustainability report, titled “Act. Inspire. Make a Difference. A dialogue of progress and possibility.”

The 65-page report outlines Coca-Cola’s progress within a system-wide sustainability framework that is defined by four pillars: workplace, marketplace, environment, and community. Discussion specific to the environment starts on page 33 and focuses on the key areas where the company has committed to making a difference: water stewardship, sustainable packaging, and energy management and climate protection.

Here are a few highlights from the environmental pages of the sustainability review. In 2007, Coca-Cola has:

•    Improved water use efficiency by 2% over 2006. Coca-Cola plants use an average of 2.47 liters of water to produce one liter of beverage, and the company has announced an aspirational goal to achieve what it calls “water neutrality.” Eventually, Coca-Cola wants to return to the environment an amount of water equivalent to what is used in its beverages and manufacturing processes. 

•    Invested $40 million to build the world’s largest PET bottle-to-bottle recycling plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Expected to be operational in 2009, the plant will produce approximately 100 million pounds of PET plastic (the equivalent of 2 billion 20-ounce PET bottles) for reuse each year.

•     Announced plans to become an industry leader in new technology for cooling systems. By the end of 2010, Coca-Cola plans to purchase and put into service 100,000 coolers that use CO2 as a refrigerant gas. CO2 is a GHG, but when it is used in cooling systems, CO2 is 1,300 times less potent than the hydrofluorocarbon refrigerant gases in conventional equipment.

For more information about green initiatives at the world’s largest beverage company, take a look at Coca-Cola’s 2007/2008 Sustainability Review.