Sustainability in the can for Coca-Cola
30 July 2009:
Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE) has announced plans to recover all its packaging by 2020 and has insisted that the economic slowdown has not diluted its commitment to sustainability. The news comes after the company published its 2008 Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability Report, in which it outlined its intention to recycle 98% of the waste at its European facilities.
CCE has already reduced the weight of its aluminium cans by 5% - an innovation that could result in an annual saving of up to 15,000 tonnes of aluminium - and, after successfully recovering almost 125,000 tonnes of packaging in 2008, the company is currently more than halfway to achieving its 2010 recycling target of 200,000 tonnes.
The company is now setting its sights on an average recycling rate of 25% for all its PET bottles across Europe, significantly higher than the industry average of 4%.
"Despite the challenging economic conditions of 2008, our commitment to CSR has never been stronger," said John Brock, CCE chairman and chief executive.
Over the past year CCE has built two new bottle-to-bottle recycling facilities in both the US and the UK - a scheme that has allowed Coca-Cola to recycle materials locally and subsequently incorporate it into new bottles.
Source: Procurement Leaders
