Coke to Improve Water Efficiency 25%

The Coca-Cola Company has committed to improving water efficiency in its manufacturing operations by 25 percent by 2020 compared with its 2010 baseline.

The company announced the new goal yesterday and also released its 2013 Water Stewardship and Replenish Report, which details Coke's progress over the past year working toward its goal to replenish 100 percent of the water used in its beverages and their production by 2020.

Report highlights include:

• Coke replenished an estimated 52 percent of the water used in its finished beverages (81.1 billion liters) through 468 community water projects with local communities, governments and partners across more than 100 countries, improving safe water access and sanitation for more than 1.82 million people.
• The company became more efficient in its water use by reducing the amount of water used per liter of product produced, even as production volumes increase. Its water efficiency is now 2.12 liters of water per liter of product produced, a 21.4 percent improvement since 2004 and a 5.9 percent improvement toward its 2020 goal.
• Coke bottling plants have achieved 98 percent alignment with the company’s wastewater treatment standards around the world and are recycling wastewater, treating it to strict standards and returning it to nature at a level that supports aquatic life.

In April, Coca-Cola partnered with WaterAid to provide safe drinking water to one of the poorest suburbs of Burkina Faso’s capital city, Ouagadougou, in western Africa, and in two rural communities in southern Ethiopia. The partnership supports the company’s Replenish Africa Initiative (RAIN) goals: to help provide safe water access to 2 million people in Africa by 2015.

In March, PepsiCo announced it has achieved its goal — almost three years early — of partnering to provide access to safe water to 3 million people in developing countries and has doubled its original commitment. The company has now pledged to provide access to safe water to an additional 3 million people by the end of 2015.