Coca Cola Enterprises Sustainability Report: Carbon Emissions Down 8.5%

by | May 11, 2012

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Coca Cola Enterprises decreased its carbon footprint by 8.5 percent from 2010 to 2011, while increasing production volume by 3.5 percent, according to the company’s 2011 corporate responsibility and sustainability report.

In 2010 CCE, the sole licensed operator for products of The Coca-Cola Company in a number of Western European countries, produced 840,000 metric tons of CO2 equivalent. In 2011 this figure fell to 769,000 metric tons of CO2 equivalent. Some 56 percent of the company’s carbon emissions in 2011 came from selling, cooling and vending operations, the report says. Its operations and commercial sites accounted for 23 percent of its emissions and its distribution and business travel accounted for 21 percent.

In 2011, the company invested a total of $23 million of capital expenditure in carbon reduction projects. As part of this it has targeted coolers, the largest source of its carbon footprint. CCE says it had had roughly 581,000 pieces of cooling equipment (coolers, vendors and fountain machines) in the marketplace at the end of 2011, and that year it retrofitted or refurbished 54,000 cooler units.

Retrofit techniques include fitting doors to open-front coolers. This technique can cut energy use by up to 50 percent and has so far been applied to 50 percent of the company’s open-front coolers, the report says. The company has also installed LED lighting and energy management devices in its cooler fleet, the report says. CCE no longer buys open-front coolers and all new refrigeration devices are fitted with the energy management device.

In 2011, CCE introduced three additional “Eco-Combi” trucks to its Netherlands fleet, bringing the total to eight. The trucks reduce emissions per pallet by 20 percent, according to the report. In January 2012, the company introduced a more efficient dual-fuel (diesel-biogas) version which should reduce emissions by an estimated 35 percent per pallet, the company said.

By 2020 the company plans to source 35 percent of the energy it uses in its manufacturing from renewable or low-carbon sources. In Sweden CCE has been using 100 percent renewable energy since 2008. In 2011 the company installed solar photovoltaic panels on the roof of its new distribution center at Heppignies, Belgium. In early 2012, CCE installed PV panels at its Sidcup, Edmonton and Wakefield plants in Great Britain. It is developing plans for wind power at sites across Western Europe.

Last year also saw the company reduce the amount of water required to make 1 liter of product, to 1.43 liters. This represents a reduction of 13 percent since 2007, and a 3.4 percent reduction year-on-year (see graph, below). The company has a 2020 target of using 1.2 liters of water to produce 1 liter of product.

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