Coca-Cola’s European arm cut its carbon emissions by four percent in 2010 while its business volume grew by four percent, according to its 2010/2011 Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability Report.
In 2010, Coca-Cola Enterprises calculated its operational carbon footprint at 795,181 metric tons, 35,600 tonnes below 2009 levels. The company says it has invested $8.1 million in making cold drinks equipment more efficient, installed 2,800 doors on open-fronted coolers and improved efficiencies in manufacturing and distribution.
In 2010 CCE also exceeded its water use ratio reduction target one year ahead of schedule, using 1.42 liters of water to make one liter of product, the report said. That was down six percent from 1.51 liters in 2009.
Last year the company achieved a 99.5 percent waste recovery rate at its manufacturing facilities. It reduced the amount of packaging it uses by 35,000 tons, meeting a target set in 2008, through reducing the amount of plastic in bottle closures, the thickness of bottle walls and the amount of glass in glass bottles. Just introducing shorter closures on PET bottles is saving 5,600 tons of material a year, the company said.
It aims to reduce packaging by a further 25,000 tons by 2014.
In 2010, CCE launched its PlantBottle in Norway and Sweden. The bottle, which comprises up to 30 percent Brazilian sugarcane, started rolling out worldwide in 2009.
In March 2011, CCE announced a £5 million investment in a joint venture with ECO Plastics to develop one of the biggest plastic reprocessing facilities in Western Europe, in Lincolnshire, England. When operational, the facility is expected to produce 25,000 tons of recycled PET (rPET) annually, more than doubling the amount of high quality rPET produced in the U.K., CCE said. The facility will allow CCE to include 25 percent rPET in all its plastic packaging in Great Britain by 2012, the report said.
But back in the U.S., the parent company is selling its PET recycling plant in Spartanburg, S.C., which only produced about one million of an expected 100 million pounds of recycled plastic, according to Plastics News.
Last year CCE held its second second Supplier Sustainability Summit, bringing together its top 50 suppliers to discuss how best to reduce impacts throughout its value chain.
CCE’s latest CRS Report is self-assessed at level B+ in alignment with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI).
