As part of its ongoing sustainability effort, the global giant Coca-Cola announced updated voluntary environmental goals for 2035. The new goals replace previous environmental goals related to water, packaging, climate, and agriculture and aim to deliver the purpose of Refreshing the World and Making a Difference.
New goals were formulated based on the data from the work in sustainability, assessments, and challenges. To achieve these, it will require investments in innovation, infrastructure, policy support and further collaboration with bottling partners, industry peers, governments and civil society.
Said Bea Perez, EVP and Global Chief Communications, Sustainability & Strategic Partnerships Officer, Coca‑Cola, “These challenges are complex and require us to drive more effective and efficient resource allocation and work collaboratively with partners to deliver lasting positive impact.”
Water:
Water is essential to people and ecosystems and is the main ingredient in the company’s products. As water is sourced locally, the company aims to reach 100% replenishment in each of the more than 200 high-risk locations.
The locations, almost a third of the Coca‑Cola system’s locations, were identified in 2024. The risk profile of the Coca‑Cola system’s production facilities is expected to be reassessed within five years.
The company aim to return more than 100% of the water used in finished products globally, on an aggregate level, to nature and communities. Since 2015, the company has met or exceeded this goal.
Packaging:
The beverages comes in a variety of packaging – glass, plastic bottles, aluminum cans and refillable packaging. It is focusing to use more recycled material in primary packaging and supporting collection rates. This require enabling policies and the growth of collection infrastructure. As a first step, the company intends to invest in refillable packaging where infrastructure already exists.
- To use 35% to 40% recycled material in primary packaging (plastic, glass and aluminum)
- Increasing recycled plastic use to 30% to 35% globally.
- Ensure the collection of 70% to 75% of the bottles and cans annually.
To bring in measurable change, the company aims to focus on interconnected actions under two pillars: Design and Partner to Collect.
Design:
More than 95% of the company’s primary consumer packaging is designed to be recycled, and it is working to resolve the remaining packages.
This, combined with innovations such as lightweighting, can avoid the additional use of virgin plastic.
Costs, quality and scaling innovation can affect implementation.
Partner to Collect:
The collection and recycling remains challenging, as each region has unique systems, infrastructure, regulatory environments and consumer behaviors.
If it reaches 70% to 75% collection rate, it intends to further increase collection over the long term. And also in refillable packaging.
Emissions
The aim is to reduce Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions in line with a 1.5°C trajectory by 2035, from a 2019 baseline.
The company aims to reduce emissions in its own operations, including manufacturing operations and company-owned bottling partners.
The acquired businesses BODYARMOR, CHI, Costa, doğadan, fairlife and innocent are excluded from the goals. The company expects to prepare these businesses for integration into its 1.5°C trajectory over time.
Actions:
While the company will no longer have a voluntary goal on agriculture, it seeks to continue initiatives and programs with suppliers and third-party stakeholders to support sustainable sourcing of agricultural ingredients.
This is expected to reduce water use and emissions, prevent deforestation and conserve high-risk areas in the supply chain.
The company expects to continue to report on its sustainability progress annually, evaluate its actions, market dynamics, additional learnings and stakeholder needs to align with the 2035 goals.
