The story appears on

Page A9

June 18, 2015

GET this page in PDF

Free for subscribers

View shopping cart

Related News

Home » Business » Consumer

Coke China achieves 100% water replenishment ahead of schedule

COCA-COLA China announced yesterday that, with an independent third-party verification, it met its 2020 water replenishment goal at the end of 2014.

By joint efforts with its partners and through a wide range of innovative initiatives, Coca-Cola China safely replenished 17.1 billion liters of clean water back to nature and Chinese communities in 2014.

China is one of the first seven markets to have met Coca-Cola global water replenishment goal. As the world’s first company to establish 100 percent water replenishment as part of the 2020 Vision, The Coca-Cola Company and all the bottling partners also announced that they are on track to meet the goal by the end of 2015 globally.

Since 2004, Coca-Cola has been implementing the “3R” water strategy — to reduce, recycle and replenish. The Coca-Cola system has replenished estimated 153.6 billion liters of water back to nature and communities through 209 water resource management and protection projects in 64 countries. Based on an independent third-party verification of the Coca-Cola system’s global water replenishment projects published in its 2015 replenishment report, the system is balancing an estimated 94 percent of the water used in its finished beverages based on 2014 sales volume.

By synchronizing the strengths and resources of its “Golden Triangle” partnership between government, civil society and business, Coca-Cola has propelled about 20 water resource management and protection projects in China.

These locally-focused projects are diverse, covering source water protection, sustainable agriculture, water loss and soil erosion control, flood utilization, wetland protection and recovery, reclaimed water reuse and promoting mini-wetland technology in rural areas.

In all, Coca-Cola has implemented the water stewardship programs covering 10 major river basins in China including the Yangtze River, Yellow River, Huaihe River, Haihe River, Pearl River and Songhua River.

The “Guangxi Sustainable Sugarcane Initiative” is a comprehensive project that combines both sustainable agriculture and irrigation optimization.

The project optimized local irrigation methodology to achieve both economic and environmental goals, efforts including adopting spray and drop irrigation, integrating water into fertilizer, and pipelining treated nutrient-rich wastewater from sugar mills to nearby sugar farms.

With these measures, water is conserved in line with the increased sugarcane yield. In addition, Coca-Cola constructed facilities for local farmers to access safe drinking water to address local farmers’ need.

“Through our over 10 years of continuous efforts, we have achieved the milestone of 100 percent water replenishment goal by 2014 in China. We’d like to attribute the success to Ministry of Water Resources, Ministry of Commerce and many local government agencies, our global partners such as the UNDP and WWF, our bottling partners across the country and organizations that share the same vision with us,” said Zhang Huaying, vice president of Sustainability from Coca-Cola China and Korea. “Water resources protection has been spotlighted in the coming years. We are keenly focused on further replenishing water as well as developing our business in China, and will continue to do our part for the Chinese communities.”

All of Coca-Cola China’s water stewardship efforts are closely linked to its value chain, taking a long-term outlook for local community’s needs.

Projects are designed within the production facilities, from the supply chain or directly linked to business. Meanwhile, Coca-Cola China employees are deeply involved in these project executions.

“It’s our planet, our water resources and our responsibility. Everyone involved in those projects feels the power of changing,” Zhang added.




 

Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.

沪公网安备 31010602000204号

Email this to your friend