The Coca‑Cola Company Evolves Voluntary Environmental Goals

Company to Continue to Focus on Improving Water Security in High-Risk Locations, Reducing Packaging Waste and Decreasing Emissions

ATLANTA, Dec. 2, 2024 – The Coca‑Cola Company today announced updated voluntary environmental goals with the aim of delivering on the company’s purpose to Refresh the World and Make a Difference.

This evolution is informed by learnings gathered through decades of work in sustainability, periodic assessment of progress and identified challenges. Achieving these ambitions will require continued investments in innovation and infrastructure solutions, enabling legislation and further collaboration with bottling partners, industry peers, local governments and civil society.

The company is prioritizing goals and actions that seek to improve water security in high-risk locations, reduce packaging waste and decrease emissions, and is extending the timeframe to 2035.

"We remain committed to building long-term business resilience and earning our social license to operate through our evolved voluntary environmental goals," said Bea Perez, Executive Vice President and Global Chief Communications, Sustainability & Strategic Partnerships Officer at The Coca‑Cola Company. "These challenges are complex and require us to drive more effective and efficient resource allocation and work collaboratively with partners to deliver lasting positive impact."

The following 2035 goals replace previous environmental goals set by the company related to water, packaging, climate and agriculture.

Water

• Aim to return more than 100% of the water used in finished products globally, on an aggregate level, to nature and communities. Since 2015, the company¹ has met or exceeded this goal.
• Seek to return 100% of the total water used in each of the more than 200 high-risk locations across the Coca‑Cola system.

Water is essential to people and ecosystems and is the main ingredient in the company’s products. Because water is sourced locally, the company aims to reach 100% replenishment of water used in each of the more than 200 high-risk locations across the Coca‑Cola system. The locations, which represent almost a third of the Coca‑Cola system’s locations² globally, were identified following an extensive analysis updated in 2024³.

The risk profile of the Coca‑Cola system’s production facilities is expected to be reassessed within five years to help ensure investments and actions are appropriately calibrated to help improve water security where the company operates.

The company continues to focus on promoting water stewardship, increasing water use efficiency and treating and returning safe water to communities.

Packaging

• Aim to use 35% to 40% recycled material⁴ in primary packaging (plastic, glass and aluminum), including increasing recycled plastic use to 30% to 35% globally.
• Help ensure the collection of 70% to 75% of the equivalent number of bottles and cans introduced into the market annually.

The company offers beverages in a variety of packaging formats – glass and plastic bottles, aluminum cans and refillable packaging. Each option can play a role in helping reduce packaging waste and emissions. The company is focusing its efforts to use more recycled material in primary packaging and supporting collection rates, both of which require enabling policies and the growth of collection infrastructure. The company intends to continue to invest in refillable packaging where infrastructure already exists. The Coca‑Cola system aims to focus on measurable and interconnected actions under two pillars: Design and Partner to Collect.

Design

• The company is focused on ensuring that its primary packaging is recyclable. Almost all (more than 95%)⁵ of the company’s primary consumer packaging is designed to be recycled, and it is working to resolve the remaining packages.
• The use of recycled content in primary packaging can help reduce the company’s emissions. This effort, combined with innovations such as lightweighting, can avoid the additional use of virgin plastic. Costs, quality and scaling innovation are dynamic external factors that will affect implementation.

Partner to Collect

• The collection and recycling of beverage packaging remains challenging, as every state and country has unique systems, infrastructure, regulatory environments and sets of consumer behaviors. Collective action is needed to support packaging collection infrastructure and policies. The company will continue to focus on increased advocacy for well-designed collection systems, as these are often the most efficient ways to improve packaging collection rates.
• If the company reaches its 70% to 75% collection rate ambition, it intends to continue working to further increase collection over the long term. The company also intends to invest to expand the use of refillable packaging in markets where infrastructure is in place to support this important part of the company’s portfolio.

Through collaboration with local and global partners, the company will continue to expand its design innovations, explore new collection models or improve existing ones, invest in local infrastructure and engage with policymakers.

Emissions

• Aim to reduce the company’s Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions in line with a 1.5°C trajectory by 2035, from a 2019 baseline.  

The company aims to reduce emissions in its own operations, including concentrate manufacturing operations and company-owned bottling partners. The company’s actions on water and packaging can also help mitigate the impacts caused by climate change. The company’s acquired businesses will be excluded from this goal, including BODYARMOR, CHI, Costa, doğadan, fairlife and innocent. The company expects to prepare these businesses for integration into its 1.5°C trajectory over time.  

Achieving this ambition requires additional investments in new technologies and renewable sources, and working with franchise bottling partners and suppliers to reduce their direct emissions, which are the company’s Scope 3 emissions.

Ongoing Actions

While the company will no longer have a voluntary goal on agriculture, it seeks to continue initiatives and programs with suppliers and third-party stakeholders to support sustainable sourcing of agricultural ingredients. These actions are intended to reduce water use and emissions to help prevent deforestation and conserve high-risk areas in the supply chain. The company also recognizes the importance of continuing and expanding efforts and partnering with stakeholders to better the lives of those who grow and harvest ingredients included in beverages and packaging.

The company expects to continue to report on its sustainability progress annually. It also intends to evaluate its actions, market dynamics, additional learnings and stakeholder needs regularly to maintain close alignment of 2035 goals with business priorities and the company’s progress.

“We know we will have more chapters in our journey and that we can’t do it alone,” Perez said. “Continued collaboration, targeted investments and well-designed policies are crucial to help create shared value for all.”

Footnotes

^{1 With support from The Coca‑Cola Foundation, the company’s owned and independent bottling partners and independent suppliers and partners.}

^{2 The Coca‑Cola system is made up of over 200 bottling partners and 950 production facilities. For the assessment of high-risk locations, the number of facilities evaluated was approximately 720 locations as it does not include third-party contracted manufacturers.}

^{3 Using the World Resources Institute Aqueduct 4.0 tool and Coca‑Cola system level assessments of each production facility.}

^{4 The company will continue to comply with local regulations, including where higher percentages of recycled content are required.}

^{5 Excludes cups, which are purchased by customers and outside of the company’s control.}

About The Coca‑Cola Company

The Coca‑Cola Company (NYSE: KO) is a total beverage company with products sold in more than 200 countries and territories. Our company’s purpose is to refresh the world and make a difference. We sell multiple billion-dollar brands across several beverage categories worldwide. Our portfolio of sparkling soft drink brands includes Coca‑Cola, Sprite and Fanta. Our water, sports, coffee and tea brands include Dasani, smartwater, vitaminwater, Topo Chico, BODYARMOR, Powerade, Costa, Georgia, Gold Peak and Ayataka. Our juice, value-added dairy and plant-based beverage brands include Minute Maid, Simply, innocent, Del Valle, fairlife and AdeS. We’re constantly transforming our portfolio, from reducing sugar in our drinks to bringing innovative new products to market. We seek to positively impact people’s lives, communities and the planet through water replenishment, packaging recycling, sustainable sourcing practices and carbon emissions reductions across our value chain. Together with our bottling partners, we employ more than 700,000 people, helping bring economic opportunity to local communities worldwide. Learn more at www.coca-colacompany.com and follow us on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn.

The information contained on, or that may be accessed through, our website or social media channels is not incorporated by reference into, and is not a part of, this document.

Forward-Looking Statements

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