Johannesburg  — The Coca-Cola Company in Africa and its bottling partners Coca-Cola Beverages Africa (CCBA), Equatorial Coca-Cola Bottling Company (ECCBC) and Coca-Cola HBC announced a nearly USD 25 million investment to help address critical water-related challenges in local communities in 20 African countries, starting this year through 2030. The work will be led by Global Water Challenge (GWC) and implemented by a consortium of partners, including The Nature Conservancy (TNC), The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

The effort, called ‘The Coca-Cola System’s Africa Water Stewardship Initiative’, was introduced in Cape Town, South Africa, in presence of executives from the Coca-Cola system in Africa and NGO partners. During the event, Karyn Harrington, Vice President of Public Affairs, Communications and Sustainability at The Coca-Cola Company’s Africa Operating Unit indicated “Water is a priority for The Coca-Cola Company and its local bottling partners because it is essential to life, the communities we serve and our beverages. As we face increasing water insecurity worldwide, with demand outstripping supply in many regions such as Africa, Coca-Cola is taking steps to help accelerate efforts to address water stress, protect local water resources, and build community climate resilience. Our 2030 Water Security Strategy focuses on helping enhance water security where we operate, source ingredients, and touch lives.”

“One in three Africans face water insecurity. The Global Water Challenge and ‘The Coca-Cola System’s Africa Water Stewardship Initiative’ partner coalition will seek to improve water security for millions across the African continent, helping advance community health and resilience through abundant, clean water. We applaud Coca-Cola’s continued leadership on African water security” said Monica Ellis, CEO of GWC.

‘The Coca-Cola System’s Africa Water Stewardship Initiative’ aims to help protect and enhance the health of important watersheds and to help improve access to water and sanitation services in local communities. We will have projects in Algeria, Botswana, Cabo Verde, Comoros, Egypt, Eritrea, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mayotte, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Somalia, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.  

“CCBA has a responsibility to help those who face water scarcity and to help protect local water resources where we operate, especially in places with the biggest challenges. We are proud to partner with The Coca-Cola Company on this project,” says Layla Jeevanantham, Chief Public Affairs, Communication and Sustainability Officer at CCBA.

“We are proud to partner with The Coca-Cola Company and fellow bottlers on this critical initiative to help tackle water challenges across Africa. By working together, we can leverage the expertise of our partners and the knowledge of local communities to help create sustainable solutions that enhance water access and safeguard vital water resources,” said Sonia Ventosa, Public Affairs, Communications & Sustainability Manager at ECCBC.

“Coca-Cola HBC has been part of African communities for more than 70 years, and sustainability is an important part of how we operate. We’re very happy to see this new water initiative come to life and to support the system’s water stewardship efforts,” said Marcel Martin, Chief Corporate Affairs & Sustainability Officer, Coca-Cola HBC.

Recognizing that partnerships are critical to support this work, the company and its bottlers are collaborating with governments, businesses, and civil society organizations to design and implement strategic interventions. In addition to supporting the company’s water strategy, this effort also aims to contribute to advancing the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 6, which focuses on ensuring availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation. 

This water initiative will build upon The Coca-Cola Foundation (TCCF)’s Replenish Africa Initiative (RAIN), a groundbreaking collaboration with key partners and co-funders which helped improve access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene for 6 million people across African countries between 2009 and 2019. Through 120 projects, the initiative positively impacted homes, schools and healthcare clinics in more than 4,000 communities.

 

*Update* On December 2, 2024, The Coca-Cola Company announced updated voluntary environmental goals. Read more here: The Coca-Cola Company Evolves Voluntary Environmental Goals

Ahafo – The Dantano, Anwiam, Otariso and Kabu communities have been provided with water after boreholes were commissioned and handed over recently by Voltic (GH) Ltd.

With the new boreholes installed by Voltic, a subsidiary of Coca-Cola Beverages Africa, each community now has access to a regular supply of water.

“Water is a priority for Voltic because it is essential to life, our beverages and the communities we serve,” said Flora Jika, General Manager, Voltic.

“As part of the Coca-Cola system, our 2030 Water Security Strategy is focused on accelerating the actions needed to increase water security where we operate, source ingredients and touch people’s lives.

“We do that by contributing toward sustainable, clean water access that improves livelihoods and wellbeing,” said Jika.

“The 2030 Water Strategy is grounded in the fact that water is a shared resource. As such, our work is organised to address water security in our operations, our watersheds and our communities,” Jika said.  

 

*Update* On December 2, 2024, The Coca-Cola Company announced updated voluntary environmental goals. Read more here: The Coca-Cola Company Evolves Voluntary Environmental Goals

Johannesburg, – “At Coca-Cola Beverages Africa (CCBA), our sustainability strategy is centred around people—consumers and our employees—and driving sustainable solutions that build resilience into our business to respond to current and future challenges, while creating positive change for the planet,” said CCBA Chief Public Affairs, Communication and Sustainability Officer, Tshidi Ramogase.

“Water is a priority for the Coca-Cola system because it is the first ingredient in all our beverages and is essential to the communities we serve.

“The Coca-Cola Company’s 2030 Water Security Strategy focuses on increasing water security. We work with partners to provide access to a steady supply of clean water for people and ecosystems in the areas where we operate and source ingredients,” Ramogase said.

“We do that by contributing toward sustainable, clean water access that improves livelihoods and wellbeing while protecting against water-related disasters.

“Inside our operations, we are committed to regenerative water use. This means using less water as well as re-using and treating wastewater.  

“For example, in Kenya we opened a new wastewater treatment plant at our Equator Bottlers plant in Kisumu, which will promote more sustainable water use and help reduce the factory’s environmental impact. The new plant will enable us to treat and recycle wastewater generated from the production facility, which will be used for non-potable purposes such as irrigation and cleaning. 

”Our subsidiary, Coca-Cola Beverages Botswana, signed an agreement last year with the Botswana University of Agriculture and Natural Resources to donate water from its newly installed water treatment plant for agricultural irrigation at the campus. The new state-of-the-art water treatment plant has made the company fully effluent compliant by ensuring that clean water is returned to the environment. 

“For our packaging, we seek to drive a circular economy because this helps to reduce waste and carbon emissions. We’re working to use more recycled content in our packaging, to expand our use of refillable bottles, and to collect packaging for recycling through Coca-Cola’s World Without Waste initiative. We also partner to design new solutions for packaging.

“As an example, Coca-Cola and other like-minded industries came together in 2004 to set up the PET Recycling Company (PETCO) in South Africa to promote and regulate the recycling of PET plastic, taking responsibility for recovering and recycling beverage PET plastic bottles.   

“The PETCO model has proven so effective it has been extended to three other markets, Kenya, Tanzania and Ethiopia, with plans to include additional countries like Namibia.  

“While we strive to make progress on our own, we are committed to fostering partnerships that drive collective impact in areas including water stewardship, packaging circularity, climate action and many more.

“We engage with stakeholders, including governments, NGOs, communities, suppliers, business partners, customers and consumers in all the markets where we operate, in many forums and formats. Feedback from our stakeholders allows us to learn and improve, and informs our business and sustainability strategy,” Ramogase said.

 

*Update* On December 2, 2024, The Coca-Cola Company announced updated voluntary environmental goals. Read more here: The Coca-Cola Company Evolves Voluntary Environmental Goals

Byline: Tshidi Ramogase, Coca-Cola Beverages Africa’s Chief Public Affairs, Communications and Sustainability Officer

Africa’s vulnerability to climate change was once again demonstrated in late 2023, when torrential rains swept across much of East Africa, bringing devastating floods just six months after a record-breaking five-season drought in the region.

Vast areas of farmland in Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia were inundated, washing away homes and destroying thousands of hectares of crops.

These events highlight the urgency of improved water security and climate resilience on the continent.

Coca-Cola Beverages Africa (CCBA) partners with governments, the private sector, NGOs and communities to promote water security. Water is a priority for Coca-Cola Beverages Africa (CCBA) because it is essential to life, our beverages and the communities we serve.

The Coca-Cola Company’s 2030 Water Security Strategy is focused on accelerating the actions needed to increase water security where we operate, source ingredients and touch people’s lives.

We invest in water initiatives that benefit nature and communities. This includes projects that provide benefits to local watersheds that supply water for drinking, agriculture and manufacturing, restore and conserve habitats for plants and animals and offer opportunities for local economic development. 

 As part of this work, we collaborate with partners to understand the inextricable link between water, climate, agriculture and biodiversity.  

In addition, many of our water replenishment projects have additional co-benefits such as helping improve soil health, sequester carbon, conserve water, restore degraded lands, contribute to biodiversity and help mitigate climate change.

Our work is organised to address water security inside our operations, in our watersheds and in our communities. Also, we continue to replenish the water we use in our finished beverages to nature and communities.

Inside our operations, the Coca-Cola system is committed to regenerative water use. This means using less water as well as re-using and treating wastewater.

For example, in Kenya we opened a new wastewater treatment plant at our Equator Bottlers plant in Kisumu, which will promote more sustainable water use and help reduce the factory’s environmental impact. The new plant will enable us to treat and recycle wastewater generated from the production facility, which will be used for non-potable purposes such as irrigation and cleaning.

Our subsidiary, Coca-Cola Beverages Botswana, signed an agreement last year with the Botswana University of Agriculture and Natural Resources to donate water from its newly installed water treatment plant for agricultural irrigation at the campus. The new state-of-the-art water treatment plant has made the company fully effluent compliant by ensuring that clean water is returned to the environment.

We also aim to improve the health of watersheds identified as most critical for our operations and agricultural supply chain by supporting nature-based solutions, investing in landscape solutions and helping farmers to use less water.

CCBA in Kenya has been actively engaged over the past three years in reforesting 90 hectares of critical forests that play a significant role in Nairobi’s water catchment areas in collaboration with implementing partner, Nature Kenya.

When it comes to communities, we aim to help provide access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and advocate for good water governance.

Our South African bottler, Coca-Cola Beverages South Africa (CCBSA), supported good water governance in Grabouw in the Western Cape, where the municipality was losing a significant amount of its potable water due to leaks and failing infrastructure. Through this partnership, we trained young community members in plumbing to support the rehabilitation of water infrastructure, including fixing leaks in informal areas.

In response to a looming Day Zero in parts of the Eastern Cape province in South Africa, CCBSA deployed off-grid, solar-powered groundwater harvesting and treatment projects called Cokevilles in the region. A total of nine systems, or water tanks, have been deployed in Gqeberha and similar Cokeville projects have been installed in other peri-urban and rural communities in Limpopo, Gauteng, Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.

We do business the right way as a trusted partner for sustainable growth by managing packaging waste, water stewardship, and economic inclusion, particularly for women and youth. We are committed to making a positive impact on people’s lives and communities for a better shared future in Africa. 

 

*Update* On December 2, 2024, The Coca-Cola Company announced updated voluntary environmental goals. Read more here: The Coca-Cola Company Evolves Voluntary Environmental Goals

By Tshidi Ramogase, Chief Public Affairs, Communication and Sustainability Officer, Coca-Cola Beverages Africa

 International Women’s Day highlights the private sector’s crucial role in advancing the economic inclusion of women in Africa.

At Coca-Cola Beverages Africa (CCBA), we use our industry leadership to be part of the solution for positive change on the African continent. Our aim is to create greater shared opportunity for the business and the communities we serve across the value chain.

We understand that our business can only thrive when the communities we serve thrive too. This is why we have made economic inclusion of women one of the pillars of our sustainability strategy at CCBA.

Across our value chain, we are working to improve skills and business knowledge for women, which in turn can help give them access to more opportunities.

For example, in Tanzania we have an economic inclusion programme called Mwanamke Shujaa (“A Brave Woman”), which provides training and mentorship to woman food vendors, as well as tools of the trade to enable them to grow their businesses. Training covered key areas like bookkeeping, customer care, stress management and capital growth.

In Ethiopia, female engineering students have joined our “Women in Engineering” trainee programme which will give them development opportunities and exposure to the company’s world-class operations, setting them up for future employment.

Through our partnership in Ghana with Girls in Science and Technology (GIST, CCBA subsidiary Voltic aims to reach women at different levels of education, providing them with the mentorship and coaching they need for a successful and impactful Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) career.

In South Africa, we have established a bursary fund at the University of Pretoria to support female students from previously disadvantaged backgrounds in their final year of engineering studies.

In Mozambique, a group of  women plastic waste collectors completed a 12-week training course in an economic inclusion programme supported by CCBA. These women have since educated their communities about the positive effects of recycling.

We will continue to focus on creating a better shared future, to grow and sustain small businesses and enhance livelihoods, resulting in increased economic value and business capability for women, communities and our business system.

We believe this holistic approach, within and outside our organisation, drawing on the ability of everyone to inspire inclusion, is a powerful formula for change.

Coca-Cola Beverages Africa (CCBA) today announced that CEO Jacques Vermeulen will retire after 28 years of service with the Coca-Cola system.

CCBA has appointed Sunil Gupta, currently chief financial officer for The Coca-Cola Company’s Bottling Investments Group (BIG), as Jacques’ successor, effective 1 April 2024. Sunil’s career includes 25 years in the Coca-Cola system, with extensive operating experience in business and finance, having worked closely with commercial, supply chain, IT, human resources, and other functions. Sunil has served as CFO of BIG since 2018 and helped transform and turnaround its business. Prior to his current role with BIG based in Singapore, Sunil has been successful in complex operating roles with former Coca-Cola FEMSA operations in Philippines and the company-owned bottler in India. Before joining the Coca-Cola system in 1999, Sunil held roles with Bank of America NT&SA in Mumbai, India; Casio India Limited in New Delhi, India; and Ernst & Young International in New Delhi, India.

Sunil holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Delhi and is a qualified Chartered Accountant. He has completed executive programmes at INSEAD Business School in Singapore and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

Sunil will play a critical role in The Coca-Cola Company’s continued commitment to successfully list CCBA as a public company via an initial public offering (IPO) once market conditions become more favourable.

Norton Kingwill, chief financial officer of CCBA, will be acting CEO during the transition period before Sunil joins CCBA. Norton’s close working relationship with Jacques will help ensure stability and continuity.

“On behalf of the CCBA board, I want to recognise and thank Jacques for his many contributions to CCBA over the past 28 years,” said Bruno Pietracci, Chairman of the Board, CCBA. “He guided CCBA through a global pandemic, a strong recovery and laid the foundations for continued superior growth. Under his leadership, CCBA came together as ONE CCBA, and he set CCBA on the path for a major transformation. We congratulate Jacques on an outstanding career within CCBA and wish him and his family much success, good health and happiness in the future.”

“It has been a privilege leading CCBA the past five years,” Jacques said. “I commend the CCBA teams for their dedication and resilience in growing a sustainable business, anchored in CCBA’s strong values, while proving commitment to the transformational projects underway, despite the headwinds faced in-market. I thank all employees, customers, partners and stakeholders for the collaboration, trust and joint successes. I’m confident the successful journey of CCBA will continue for many years to come.”

 

ABOUT CCBA

CCBA is the 8th largest Coca-Cola bottling partner in the world by revenue, and the largest on the continent. It accounts for over 40% of all Coca-Cola products sold in Africa by volume. With over 18,000 employees in Africa, CCBA services more than 680,000 customers with a host of international and local brands. The group was formed in July 2016 after the successful combination of the southern and east Africa bottling operations of the non-alcoholic ready-to-drink beverages businesses of The Coca-Cola Company, SABMiller plc and Gutsche Family Investments. CCBA shareholders are currently: The Coca-Cola Company 66.5% and Gutsche Family Investments 33.5%. CCBA operates in 15 countries, including its six key markets of South Africa, Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, Mozambique and Namibia, as well as Tanzania, Botswana, Ghana, Zambia, the islands of Comoros and Mayotte, Eswatini, Lesotho and Malawi.

Learn more at  Homehttps://www.ccbagroup.com

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Accra – Two farming communities in the Akuapem North Municipality in the Eastern Region have been provided with a secure supply of water after boreholes were commissioned and handed over today by Voltic (GH) Limited. 

At Otariso, the community of about 4,000 people were using a local stream as their water supply, despite it not being safe for drinking. In Kebu, with an estimated population of 3,000, the community also depended on a stream for water, leading to the risk of water-borne diseases. 

With the new boreholes installed by Voltic, a subsidiary of Coca-Cola Beverages Africa, each community now has a safe and regular supply of water, with a daily capacity of 20,000 litres. 

“Water is a priority for Voltic because it is vital to our business and critical to public health, food security, biodiversity and climate resilience. We have a responsibility to address water stress, protect local water resources and help build community climate resilience,” said Managing Director of Voltic, Flora Jika.  

“Our 2030 water strategy is focused on accelerating the actions needed to increase water security where we operate, source ingredients and touch people’s lives.   

“Voltic is focused on good water stewardship, starting within our operations, and extending to the communities where we work.  

“We invest in initiatives to reduce the amount of water used in making beverages, and to treat and reuse water where possible. We also work to preserve nature and biodiversity, and promote advanced water management practices,” said Jika. 

“A key aspect of our strategy is replenishing the water used in our products. This means that, for the amount of water used in finished beverages, our aspiration is that the same amount is returned to nature and communities. 

“We are also improving community access to drinking water, sanitation and hygiene while supporting people – especially women and girls – to prepare and rapidly recover from water-related crises. 

“In priority watersheds, we are establishing and implementing watershed stewardship plans to address shared challenges, such as water quantity, quality, ecosystems, infrastructure and governance. 

“No entity can solve the water challenges alone. We believe in collective action and partnership to tackle this issue together,” said Jika. 

“It is important that all relevant stakeholders have a voice, an investment and a shared understanding of the outcomes to ensure we make the lack of access to safe water an issue of the past.” 

 

*Update* On December 2, 2024, The Coca-Cola Company announced updated voluntary environmental goals. Read more here: The Coca-Cola Company Evolves Voluntary Environmental Goals

Johannesburg  – The World Trade Organisation has recently warned that global tensions are causing fragmentation of trade, noting an uptick in unilateral trade restrictions and a growing trend towards consolidation of relationships within limited groups of “friendly” counties. 

There is a risk of a return to the era of discrete trade blocs founded on common geopolitical and economic interests, and a reversal of development gains made during the period of globalisation. 

This places Africa, which is already over-reliant on trade in commodities that results in significant trade imbalances, in a precarious position, just as it weathers a perfect storm of raw material price increases, high inflation and currency devaluation. 

Businesses across the continent are having to manage these headwinds, along with very high unemployment levels and enormous cost pressures on consumers. 

Other than maintaining a prudent foreign policy position and promoting diplomacy over conflict, there is not much that African governments can do about geopolitical tensions among the great powers, but this doesn’t mean they are powerless in the face of a fragmenting trade environment. 

Africa itself is a huge market, with a rapidly growing and urbanising population that is increasingly connected, skilled and entrepreneurial. 

According to the World Bank, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) presents “a major opportunity for African countries to bring 30 million people out of extreme poverty and to raise the incomes of 68 million others who live on less than $5.50 per day”. 

It says trade facilitation measures that cut red tape and simplify customs procedures through effective implementation of the AfCFTA could drive $292 billion in potential income gains. 

This will require deep reforms that could simultaneously unlock long-term growth in African countries. 

“Creating a continent-wide market will require a determined effort to reduce all trade costs. Governments will also need to design policies to increase the readiness of their workforces to take advantage of new opportunities,” the World Bank says in its report, The African Continental Free Trade Area: Economic and Distributional Effects. 

From the point of view of a business that operates in 15 African markets, there is a clear opportunity for Coca-Cola Beverages Africa to accelerate intra-regional trade and build larger cross-border value chains that draw on the domestic strengths of individual countries while increasing productivity, local manufacturing, entrepreneurship and employment. 

Indeed, as a business, Coca-Cola Beverages Africa’s response to the economic headwinds we are experiencing has been to initiate a top-to-bottom reassessment of our value chain, looking at every opportunity to improve how we do things and increase productivity. The removal of trade restrictions between African countries and a reduction in the costs of moving goods across borders on the continent would go a long way in helping companies like ours to avoid passing high input costs on to consumers. 

Mitigating inflation through frictionless trade instead of raising interest rates would take a lot of pressure off consumers as well. 

As a case study of how this could work, there is the example of the plastic waste recycling value chain.  

Currently, the market for recycled plastic in many African countries is too small to support local investment in recycling plants, yet the rules governing the movement of plastic waste across borders inhibit the economies of scale needed to achieve optimal rates of recycling, limit waste going to landfill, and create employment in the plastic waste circular economy. 

At a minimum investment of about R250 million, a recycling plant needs to produce at least 20,000 tonnes of PET a year to be viable, while in a country like Namibia, Coca-Cola Beverages Africa only produces 2,700 tonnes. This means more plastic goes to landfill and the opportunity to create employment in recycling is reduced. With better regional co-operation, it would be possible to send baled collected plastic bottles to South Africa and fully recycle it. 

The SADC region is working towards this goal, and the same model could be replicated in the rest of the continent, with mega regional recycling plants established in East and West Africa. This would create the scale required to attract the investment we need in recycling capacity to address the plastic waste problem, while also generating employment across the value chain. 

This is just one example of how frictionless trade could enable the creation of cross-border value chains on the continent, to the mutual benefit of all African countries. 

There are also risks, including the opportunity a free trade area could create for the expansion of trans-national illicit trade networks that are already well established. We must also be careful to ensure that the benefits of expanded intra-African trade are shared across the continent. 

This will require close co-operation among law-enforcement and regulatory bodies, and between the public and private sectors.  

Ultimately, the prize of long-term sustainable growth and increased prosperity across the continent is too valuable to be ignored. The work to make this a reality should begin in earnest. 

• Jacques Vermeulen – CEO of Coca-Cola Beverages Africa 

 

Tshidi Ramogase, Chief Public Affairs, Communication and Sustainability Officer, Coca-Cola Beverages Africa

Today as people all over the globe gather for World Cleanup Day, there is compelling reason to believe that an end to the plastic waste problem is in sight. The next round of negotiations towards a UN treaty based on legally-binding global rules and comprehensive circular economy measures to deal with plastic waste will take place in Nairobi, Kenya, in November.

Progress to date has been encouraging, and at the last round of discussions in Paris, most member states showed strong support for an ambitious treaty. Importantly, the development of a legally binding treaty is supported by a Business Coalition convened by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and WWF, in collaboration with aligned businesses, including The Coca-Cola Company, and supported by NGO partners.

The coalition sees the treaty as the single most important opportunity to accelerate progress towards a circular economy in which plastic never becomes waste or pollution, and the value of products and materials is retained in the economy.

At Coca-Cola Beverages Africa (CCBA), our commitment is to invest in our planet and our packaging, to help make the world’s packaging problem a thing of the past, working in partnership with The Coca-Cola Company in support of its sustainable packaging initiative called World Without Waste, which it launched in 2018.

We are reimagining our packaging to make it better for our planet and our business. We’re working to design better bottles because packaging shouldn’t harm our world, and if someone wants to recycle one of our packages, they should be able to.

Through various design innovations, we are reducing the amount of plastic in our bottles, increasing the recycled content in our bottles and increasing their ease of recyclability.

In South Africa, our 500ml Bonaqua bottles are made out of 100% recycled PET (rPET).

Other recent highlights include the move to clear Sprite PET in ten markets (South Africa, Namibia, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Kenya, Botswana, Uganda, Zambia and Malawi) which makes it much easier to recycle and has greater value as a recyclable material. CCBA also started using returnable 2L PET in South Africa with the view to roll this out to other markets.

A second pillar of our strategy is collection. The Coca-Cola Company and all its bottling partners are leading the industry to help collect and recycle a bottle or can for every one we sell by 2030. We’re working to bring people together to help us collect and recycle 100% of our packaging.

Regardless of where it comes from, we want every package to have more than one life.

Our approach is a voluntary collection and recycling model funded by industry through a levy on resin, the material used to make PET plastic.

Following a highly successful rollout in South Africa, we have extended this model, which is based on the principle of Extended Producer Responsibility, to three additional markets, with plans for further rollout in our markets.

Finally, we are partnering with communities and industry to clean up existing packaging. We’re bringing people together through programmes like beach and river cleanups and other ongoing local activities. To encourage more people to recycle more often, we’re investing to help people understand what to recycle, how to recycle, and where to recycle. We also work with local communities, NGOs, our competitors, and our critics to highlight this critical issue.

We are creating and supporting waste collection and recycling systems across our footprint where they didn’t exist previously and improving collection and recycling rates where systems do exist.

In Mozambique, CCBA has provided training to more than 3,000 women on the safe and efficient collection and sorting of plastic waste, empowering them to earn an income in the plastic waste circular economy.

In Ethiopia, 263 women who made a living collecting firewood in and around Entoto mountain were left without work when the Entoto Park opened. CCBA supported them to start PET collection in the park and its vicinity, sorting and providing it to recyclers. They now collect about 10 tonnes a month. They were also trained to weave baskets from recycled plastic as an additional income stream.

A model collection centre has been established in Ambo city, near CCBA subsidiary Ambo Mineral Water SC, creating employment for 13 women and two men.

Through the Extended Producer Responsibility model and initiatives like these, CCBA has made solid progress towards its goal of a 100% recycling rate.

In addition, to help stimulate the development of a circular economy for plastic waste, we are bringing the cost down and availability up for recycled materials.

We’re working toward these solutions to create a circular economy that benefits society and works for our business.

We’ve set ambitious goals for our business, to take responsibility for our packaging across its lifecycle and reduce ocean pollution.

*Update* On December 2, 2024, The Coca-Cola Company announced updated voluntary environmental goals. Read more here: The Coca-Cola Company Evolves Voluntary Environmental Goals