Coca-Cola Enterprises Emissions Reductions, Recycling Goals

Published July 24, 2009

Coca-Cola Enterprises, the bottling, marketing and distribution arm of the beverage giant, today released its latest sustainability report, including setting a series of goals for its corporate responsibility and sustainability efforts, called "Commitment 2020."

The company, which employs about 72,000 people in its service area of North America and Western Europe, said it plans to cut its overall carbon footprint by 15 percent before 2020, compared to its 2007 baseline.

CCE has also set goals for its water stewardship and sustainable packaging initiatives: in addition to becoming "water-neutral" in the communities it operates in -- returning the same amount of water to local aquifers that it uses in its operations -- Coca Cola Enterprises also aims to achieve 100 percent recycling rate for its packaging by 2020.

The company measured its total CO2 footprint in 2008 for the first time, finding that through Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions it is responsible for the emission of about 1.5 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent per year. CCE aims to reduce this amount through improving energy efficiency at its facility with lighting retrofits, greening their buildings, expanding their hybrid-electric truck fleet, and other projects.

And although the company managed to reduce its water use by 5 percent in the past year -- down to an average of 1.73 liters of water used per liter of product created -- CCE aims to continue to improve that ratio to a target goal of 1.3 liters per liter of product, since below that point the concentrated wastewater would require too much energy to purify.

In 2008, CCE avoided the use of approximately 31,000 metric tons of packaging
materials, or 2.7 percent of its total packaging used, Recovered and recycled about 125,000 metric tons of packaging, and achieved a 90 percent waste recycling rate at 14 more facilities in its service area. In the coming years, the company will close the loop on its recycling through innovations like its new recycling plant in South Carolina, which is currently the world's largest such facility.

The full report is available for download from Coca-Cola Enterprise's website.

How CCE will close the loop on its recycling. Click for a full-sized version.

What about vending machines?

Anonymous, July 24, 2009 - 11:57

It's good to see that Coke isn't sitting idle. I had read somewhere that their biggest use of energy was in the vending machines that serve their drinks.

Coca Cola should consider installing all their vending machines/grocery store coolers with Vending Misers. A Vending Miser is a motion sensor that powers the machine down when nobody is around. You'll find a similar device in many public bathrooms.

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Anonymous, July 24, 2009 - 01:56

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Coca-Cola Enterprises Emissions Reductions, Recycling Goals

What about vending machines?

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