Coke Sustainability Report: Emissions Intensity Down 2%

coke carbon intensity

by | Dec 3, 2013

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coke carbon intensityCoca-Cola’s emissions intensity, a ratio of emissions to sales volume, improved nearly 2 percent last year versus 2011, and 19 percent since 2004.

Its emissions ratio in grams CO2 per liter fell to 37.81 last year, down 2 percent from 38.64 in 2011 and down 10 percent from 41.66 in 2009.

The company is reducing emissions in part through WWF’s “Top 10 Energy-Saving Challenge,” which equips bottlers and plant managers with 10 high-return, low-risk energy-saving practices they can readily implement. To date, 526 of Coca-Cola’s nearly 900 manufacturing facilities are implementing the practices, and 127 have completed the entire Top 10.

But the company is off-track of a goal to keep its system-wide carbon emissions stable, from 2004 to 2015, as its business grows. Global manufacturing emissions in 2012 were 15 percent above the 2004 baseline, though they were 1.2 million metric tons lower than the business-as-usual forecast for 2012. 

“We consider this upward trend to be both disappointing and unacceptable,” the company says, using unusually harsh language for a sustainability report. Coca-Cola adds that it is working to reduce emissions through a variety of measures, including using more clean energy.

Total GHG emissions last year were 5.48 MMt CO2e, including direct GHG emissions of 1.85 MMt CO2e.

Last July, Coca-Cola established a goal to reduce the carbon footprint embedded in its finished products by 25 percent by 2020, against a baseline year of 2010.

This is the company’s first goal targeting its entire end-to-end value chain, and Coca-Cola says the effort will involve improving the energy efficiency of cooling equipment, committing to more sustainable ingredient sourcing, using more fuel-efficient product delivery, phasing out hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) in new cold-drink equipment, and increasing its use of clean energy.

Coca-Cola says these efforts will prevent the release of 20 million metric tons of CO2 by 2020. It is developing annual reduction targets for the next seven years, working with suppliers to try and meet these goals, and developing processes for measuring progress.

Report overview

The company self-declared this year’s report at a GRI application level of B+. Ernst & Young provided external assurance on several sustainability indicators including water use ratio and PlantBottle packaging.

The report reiterates the 2020 sustainability goals that Coca-Cola announced in July. The document also includes many water-related results already published in Coke’s 2013 Water Stewardship and Replenish Report, published in June.

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