Accord Soft drink maker vows to help stabilize emissions in pact with World Wildlife Fund

B2

Adam Satariano
Bloomberg News

Stumble Upon

del.icio.us

Digg

Facebook

Print

Email

Speak Up

SAN FRANCISCO - Coca-Cola Co., the world's largest soft-drink maker, vowed to more efficiently use water and stabilize its carbon-dioxide emissions linked to global warming under an agreement released last week with the World Wildlife Fund.

Coca-Cola pledged to improve efficiency at bottling plants 20 percent by 2012 though overall water use will increase as business grows. The manufacturing changes will save about 50 billion litres (13 billion gallons) of water during the next four years, the Atlanta-based company said. Coca-Cola also will hold emissions at current levels, said spokeswoman Lisa Manley.

Coca-Cola is among companies such as PepsiCo Inc., Intel Corp. and Dell Inc. that have created environmental initiatives such as investing in renewable energy or seeking to become "carbon neutral." On climate change, the World Wildlife Fund also works with Johnson & Johnson, International Business Machines Corp. and Nike Inc.

"Our sustainability as a business demands a relentless focus on efficiency in our use of natural resources," Muhtar Kent, chief executive officer of Coca-Cola, said in a statement. "These performance targets are one way we are engaging to improve our management of water and energy."

Coca-Cola last year used 300 billion liters of water for its worldwide operations. Americans consume about five times that much in a day. For each one-liter jug of soft drink, Coca-Cola uses about 2.5 liters of water, according to its most recent environmental sustainability report.

To address climate change, the maker of Sprite, Minute Maid and Nestea plans to improve energy efficiency and said that by 2015 it will release about 4.7 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, or about 2 million metric tons less than it would have otherwise.

The 4.7 million metric tons of carbon dioxide is equivalent to almost 800,000 passenger cars on the road or one average U.S. coal- fired power plant, according to a conversion calculator created by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Last year, Coca-Cola had $6 billion in profit and $29 billion in sales. The company is the world's largest purchaser of sugar and high fructose corn syrup, and the largest consumer of aluminum cans, plastic bottles and refillable glass bottles not for alcoholic purposes.