Coca-Cola company is currently being accused of quietly abandoning a pledge to achieve a 25% reusable packaging target by 2030 in what campaigners call a “masterclass in greenwashing”.
The company has been previously found by researchers to be among the world’s most polluting brands when it comes to plastic waste. Recall that In 2022, the company made a promise to have 25% of its drinks sold in refillable or returnable glass or plastic bottles, or in refillable containers that could be filled up at fountains or “Coca-Cola freestyle dispensers”.
But shortly before this year’s global plastics summit, the company deleted the page on its website outlining this promise, and it no longer has a target for reusable packaging. Instead, its packaging targets now say it will “aim to use 35% to 40% recycled material in primary packaging (plastic, glass and aluminum), including increasing recycled plastic use to 30% to 35% globally”. Its previous goal promised to “use 50% recycled material in our packaging by 2030”.
Read also: Santos: Greenwashing case a ‘biased retelling’ of its net zero aspirations
The current pledge also says the company will “help ensure the collection of 70% to 75% of the equivalent number of bottles and cans introduced into the market annually”.
When the target was announced in 2022, Elaine Bowers Coventry, the company’s chief customer and commercial officer, said: “Accelerating use of reusable packages provides added value for consumers and customers while supporting our world without waste goal to collect a bottle or can for every one we sell by 2030.”
The original pledge was removed from the company’s website at some point after 20 November, which was when the global plastics treaty negotiations began. The company’s new announcement includes no mention of its reusable commitment.
This week, nearly 200 nations failed to reach an agreement to reduce the production of plastics at a meeting in Busan, South Korea. The week of talks could not resolve deep divisions between “high-ambition” countries seeking a globally binding agreement to limit production and phase out harmful chemicals, and “like-minded” nations who want to focus on waste.
Story was adapted from the Guardian.
