Coca-Cola: ‘Evolving’ Voluntary Commitments

In response to public pressure concerning plastic pollution, Coca-Cola launched their World Without Waste campaign in 2018. They appeared to accept some responsibility for the waste they produce and announced voluntary pledges for environmental change. 

In their 2022 business sustainability report, Coca-Cola presented voluntary targets for packaging. These included aiming for 50% recycled content in packaging, selling 25% of their products in reusable packaging, and collecting one bottle/can to every container sold. 

Broken promises

However, over the decades, Coca-Cola has consistently shifted their goals and failed to meet their own sustainability targets.

• Coca-Cola pledged to use 25% recycled content in their plastic packaging as far back as 1990. However, their 2023 environmental update shows that they still only use around 15% recycled content in their PET plastic packaging. 

• Their promise to sell 25% of their beverage products in reusable packaging disappeared from their website and was quietly abandoned in December 2024.

• Despite various pledges for one-to-one collection rates for recycling, rates have stubbornly remained at 61-62% in 2021, 2022 and 2023.

• Coca-Cola pledged to reduce their use of virgin plastic by a cumulative 3 million metric tons between 2020 and 2025. However, they have admitted to having made no progress to this goal blaming business growth. 

The Changing Markets Foundation presents a graph which shows the trail of broken promises that Coca-Cola has made over the years.

Coca-Cola’s new 2024 ‘evolved’ voluntary goals include using 30-35% recycled content in their plastic packaging and collecting back 70-75% of the bottles they produce by 2035. They vaguely pledge to support recycling collections and invest in refillable packaging. There is no detail on how they will achieve this and no commitment to the original more ambitious targets and time frames set in their 2022 sustainability report. The goalposts have changed once again. 

Whilst voluntary commitments sound good in principle, Coca-Cola has a history of abandoning them with little evidence to suggest they were ever serious pledges. Voluntary commitments can be seen as a clever marketing tool to appeal to eco-conscious consumers, maintaining profits and avoiding costly legislation restricting plastic use. 

Read more about The Coca-Cola Company’s greenwashing tactics in episode 6 of this seven part series….

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Images:

empty coca cola bottle on shore - Photo by maria mendiola on Unsplash - (ST ref:1102)

Marketing Success, Arrow - Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay (ST ref:1343)