The consensus on climate science is increasingly unequivocal --
global climate change is happening and man-made greenhouse gas emissions
are a crucial factor. The implications of climate change for our
planet are profound and wide-ranging, with expected impacts on biodiversity,
water resources, public health, and agriculture.
Across the Coca-Cola system, we recognize that climate change
may have long-term direct and indirect implications for our business
and supply chain. As a responsible multinational company, we have
a role to play in ensuring we use the best possible mix of energy
sources, improve the energy efficiency of our manufacturing processes,
and reduce the potential climate impact of the products we sell.
Regulations to help reduce carbon emissions as a cause of climate
change already exist in some of our markets and others are emerging.
We believe that, beyond regulatory compliance, business can play a
powerful role to help drive climate solutions through innovation and
competition.
Our response to climate change also reflects Coca-Cola's
integrated approach to sustainability in which climate protection
is a key component of our business strategy, under the Planet element
of our Mission, Vision & Values.
The Coca-Cola Company and bottling system, through our Energy &
Climate Protection strategy, are committed to finding innovative ways
to mitigate the environmental effects of our operations and products.
In particular, we are linking climate change to our leadership on
water stewardship issues and to our work with supply chain partners
on packaging.
The three principal activities of the Coca-Cola business system which
create greenhouse gases are our manufacturing
plants, the distribution
fleet, and cold
drink equipment. We continually strive to improve the energy efficiency
of our plants and fleet. In addition, the area where we have the greatest
opportunity to make a difference is cold drink equipment. HFCs (hydrofluorocarbons)
are one of the six gases which the Kyoto Protocol specifically called
to be reduced: We are making good progress toward phasing out HFC
use in both refrigeration and insulation as well as to improve the
energy efficiency of cold drink equipment by 40-50%.
As an extension of our efforts, The Coca-Cola Company co-founded
"Refrigerants,
Naturally!" with McDonald's and Unilever along with support
from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and Greenpeace.
This is an example of public-private collaboration on innovative solutions
for climate protection.
You can find more about what we are doing to reduce our carbon footprint
in our Environmental
Reports and in our responses to the Carbon Disclosure Project.
We also post our GHG inventory on the World Economic Forum's Global
Greenhouse Gas Register.
