Our Product Footprints

	HOME \| DOWNLOAD REPORT \| DATA SUMMARY \| CONTACT US \| SITE MAP

Commitment 2020 About This CRS Report A Message from Our Chairman and CEO Our Business at a Glance Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability at CCE CRS Governance CRS in Action

Energy Conservation/Climate Change Overview Understanding Climate Risks Our Energy Conservation/Climate Change Strategy Reducing Our Core Emissions Our Carbon Footprint Our Product Footprints Reducing Emissions from Our Sales and Marketing Equipment Partnerships and Public Policy

Water Stewardship Overview Understanding Our Water Risks Our Water Stewardship Strategy Reducing Our Water Use and Improving Our Efficiency Our Water Footprint Recycling, Reclaiming, and Responsible Treatment Protecting and Replenishing Our Watersheds Partnerships and Public Policy

Sustainable Packaging/Recycling Overview Understanding Our Packaging Challenges Our Sustainable Packaging/Recycling Strategy Reducing Our Packaging Reusing Materials and Increasing Recycled Content Developing Renewable Resources Recycling at Our Facilities Effective Recovery and Consumer Recycling Partnerships and Public Policy

Product Portfolio/Balanced and Active Lifestyle Overview Understanding Our Product Portfolio Challenges Our Product Portfolio Strategy Providing Choice A Selection of New 2009 Products Nutritional Labeling School Beverage Guidelines Implementation Responsible Sales and Marketing Supporting Balanced and Active Lifestyles Partnerships and Public Policy

Diverse and Inclusive Culture Overview Understanding Our Diverse and Inclusive Culture Challenges Our Diverse and Inclusive Culture Strategy Measuring Diversity Building Our Diversity and Inclusion Infrastructure Recruitment Retention and Promotion Safety Providing Equal Opportunities Partnerships and Public Policy

Stakeholder Engagement NGOs and Public-Private Partnerships Employees Our Suppliers Customers Consumers Our Communities Public Policymakers Our Shareowners

Energy Conservation/Climate Change Overview

Understanding Climate Risks

Our Energy Conservation/Climate Change Strategy

Reducing Our Core Emissions
Facilities
Fleet

Our Carbon Footprint

Our Product Footprints

Reducing Emissions from Our Sales and Marketing Equipment

Partnerships and Public Policy

Our Product Footprints

We have continued to build on the work undertaken with the Carbon Trust to calculate the carbon footprint of several of our sparkling soft drinks in Great Britain and Dasani water in the United States. We measured the carbon emissions associated with every stage of the product’s lifecycle and found that packaging accounted for between 30 percent and 70 percent of the carbon footprint, depending on variations in product, ingredients, and packaging material.

Building on this work, we are developing a database to allow us to calculate the carbon footprint of any of our beverages much more easily. Understanding how a product’s carbon footprint changes depending on packaging type, size, sweetener, refrigeration time, and other variables will allow us to make environmentally informed decisions for our products in the future, and reduce their carbon footprint over time. We also have shared the findings from our original footprinting work with the Beverage Industry Environmental Roundtable (BIER) members to help formulate specific industry guidelines for product footprinting.

Because packaging accounts for such a large proportion of all our product footprints, in 2009 we have focused on how to reduce packaging carbon impacts. The most effective way is to decrease the amount of virgin packaging material used. Aluminum cans already average 50% recycled content, so our focus has been on polyethylene terephthalate (PET), in which standard recycled content is much lower. We have been working in three main ways to reduce the virgin PET we use in our bottles by:

Engineering our bottles with less packaging, which we call lightweighting (see "Our Lightweighting Initiatives")
Using recycled PET (rPET), developing our bottles to be recyclable, and working to encourage supply of this material by collecting it in our territories through Coca-Cola Recycling in the U.S. and increased recovery efforts in Europe (see "Our Lightweighting Initiatives")
Using plant-based material, a renewable resource, to create bioPET (bPET) for use in our PlantBottle (see "Developing Renewable Resources")


	Possible Carbon Impacts of Increasing rPET and bPET – click IMAGE to enlarge –

The carbon impacts of increasing rPET and bPET are meaningful. Initial studies indicate a bottle composed of 30 percent bPET uses 20 percent less carbon than virgin PET per bottle. Using 25 percent rPET reduces the carbon footprint by 20 percent, and combined at levels of 25 percent rPET and 25 percent bPET, the bottle’s carbon footprint is reduced by 35 percent.

At present our ability to use both bPET and rPET is constrained by availability and cost. However, over time we aim to increase to 10 percent rPET in North America and 25 percent rPET in Europe, and to roll out PlantBottle more widely where commercially viable.

©2010 Coca Cola Enterprises. All rights reserved.