Our Stance on Child Labor
 

The Coca-Cola Company does not support, encourage or endorse any form of child labor in our operations throughout the system or in our supplier network. We have made progress in understanding and addressing the root causes of the child labor issue, through a variety of means including dialogue with stakeholders. We have incorporated rules against child labor into our Supplier Guiding Principles (SGP) program for direct suppliers of the Company, authorized suppliers to the Company and direct bottling partner suppliers, and all commercial agreements with direct suppliers require compliance with child labor laws.

We are taking steps to address child labor in sugarcane harvesting because we are a significant buyer of sugar worldwide. We recently hosted two convenings of experts on this topic to seek advice on the most constructive role that we can play in addressing this complex issue. These convenings included representatives of the U.S. Departments of State and Labor, the International Labour Organization, Save the Children, CARE and socially responsible investors.

As a result of these discussions, we developed an action plan focused on raising awareness at the international level and taking concrete actions at the country level in collaboration with our suppliers, local government and industries to address child labor in sugarcane harvesting.

Finally, we are members of the Better Sugarcane Initiative (BSI), a multi-stakeholder effort to reduce the impacts of sugarcane production. BSI is developing a global standard and certification system to promote measurable improvements in key economic, environmental and social impacts of sugarcane production and primary processing.

Prevention against child labor is also a key measure when we evaluate new suppliers throughout our global supply chain. See pages 31 & 42 of our 2008/2009 Sustainability Review (PDF) and our case studies on eliminating child labor for more details.