The Coca-Cola Company

Lobbying
The Coca-Cola Company discloses a list of trade associations of which it is a member wherever it operates.

Sustainability strategy and accountability

The Coca-Cola Company discloses its process for identifying and prioritising its most relevant sustainability impacts as well as the outcome of this process, in relation to its sustainability strategy. Furthermore, it provides evidence of linking performance criteria in senior executives’ remuneration policies to targets and objectives which cover nature, including biodiversity, and social issues.

Ecosystem conversion and restoration
The Coca-Cola Company discloses some activities to minimise ecosystem conversion. Furthermore, it discloses details and outcomes of ecosystem restoration projects in areas affected by its own operations or by its suppliers and has a time-bound target for its ecosystem restoration activities.

GHG emissions
The Coca-Cola Company discloses its target to reduce absolute emissions, i.e., scope 1, 2, and 3, by 25% by 2030 against a 2015 baseline and an ambition to be net zero carbon by 2050.

Resource exploitation and circularity performance
The company discloses activities to improve soil health or agrobiodiversity in its production or sourcing practices.

Solid and air pollution
The Coca-Cola Company partakes in activities and discloses quantitative data related to plastic use reduction and transitioning towards sustainable packaging, including the percentage of recycled content in its plastic packaging. It has also set targets regarding an increase in recycled content in its plastic packaging and in the proportion of reusable or refillable packaging, and reports progress against them.

Water
The company reports its water withdrawals in water-stressed areas and engages with suppliers to reduce water withdrawal. Furthermore, the Coca-Cola Company has a commitment to respect the right to water. It also discloses its processes for monitoring water quality and for implementing preventive and corrective action plans for identified specific risks to the right to water and sanitation in its own operations. The company requires access to water and sanitation, including refraining from negatively affecting access to safe water, to be included in contractual arrangements with its business relationships.

Indigenous Peoples’ and land rights
The Coca-Cola Company discloses its processes to identify and recognise the rights of Indigenous Peoples when activities in its own operations may impact their rights, and describes how it obtains Indigenous Peoples’ free, prior and informed consent.

Safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment
The Coca-Cola Company is committed to zero tolerance for acts of violence, threats, intimidation or judicial harassment committed against land and environmental rights defenders.

Act ethically
The Coca-Cola Company discloses a public commitment to protect personal data. Also, it discloses a policy on bribery and corruption and includes anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its contractual agreements with business relationships. Furthermore, it describes its processes for identifying and addressing bribery and corruption and a grievance mechanism allowing stakeholders to raise related concerns.

Provide and promote decent work
The Coca-Cola Company discloses a policy commitment to respecting the health and safety of workers for its operations and supply chain and provides evidence of how it monitors its suppliers’ performance on health and safety standards. Concerning a living wage, it describes how it determines a living wage for the regions where it operates.

Additionally, the company commits to gender equality and women’s empowerment and discloses related targets and the representation of women on the highest governance body, which is 50% women on board. Furthermore, it discloses the proportion of women in its total direct operations workforce for each employee category and that of its total direct operations workforce for each employee category by race or ethnicity.

Respect human rights
The Coca-Cola Company discloses a policy statement committing to respecting human rights and describes a comprehensive process for identifying human rights risks and impacts across all its activities and supply chain.

Also, it further describes its processes for assessing its human rights risks and discloses what it considers to be its salient human rights issues. Additionally, the company provides a case study describing how it has acted on a salient human rights risk issue. Lastly, the company engages with stakeholders whose human rights have been or may be affected by its activities and indicates that it has a human rights grievance mechanism accessible to all workers and external stakeholders who may be adversely impacted by the company.

Lobbying
While the company states that its trade association is aligned with the goals of the Paris Agreement, it has an opportunity to disclose a clear and detailed framework for assessing alignment of its trade associations with its sustainability targets and to report (potential) misalignments.

Stakeholder engagement
The company has an opportunity to disclose an overview of the issues raised by each stakeholder group during its stakeholder engagement activities and to describe its process, including frequency and channels, for engaging with stakeholder groups beyond materiality assessment.

Sustainability strategy and accountability
The company discloses some sustainability objectives/targets including climate and social inclusion. However, there is an opportunity to establish group-wide targets for the most material parts of its value chain. Also, while it reports consistently against some targets including social inclusion and plastic, it has an opportunity to report consistently against all its targets. Lastly, the company could improve its transparency by disclosing whether its highest governance body has expertise with respect to the company’s most material sustainability topics.

Ecosystem conversion and restoration
The company does not disclose a commitment to minimise ecosystem conversion or to ensure zero conversion. The company discloses some evidence of addressing conversion, however, this does not guarantee DCF-aligned practices. While the company has a target to achieve conversion-free supply chains, the certification models specified are not DCF-aligned. Furthermore, the company is not committed to restoring ecosystems.

GHG emissions
The company should reduce its scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions and report progress against its targets. Additionally, its targets need to align with a 1.5-degree trajectory.

Impact and dependencies assessment
While the company has engaged WWF to conduct a risk assessment for some of its top agricultural commodities like soybeans and coffee, using data from various reputable sources, this information is dated and not considered in the current benchmark assessment. The company has an opportunity to assess its impacts on nature, including biodiversity, within its own operations and disclose the methodology and results of these assessments. It could also extend this to evaluating dependencies on nature within its own operations and its upstream business relationships, and make these findings publicly available for current reporting periods.

Invasive species
The company has not identified any activities that could lead to the introduction of invasive alien species in its own operations.

Key areas and species
The company has an opportunity to disclose locations within or adjacent to areas important for biodiversity, both in its own operations and its supplier locations. It could also disclose existing species populations existing in or adjacent to both its own and its suppliers’ locations, as well as the conservation status of species identified at its own sites according to national and international lists.

Resource exploitation and circularity performance
The company has an opportunity to disclose its inputs according to an international standard, and to report quantitatively on its group-wide circularity performance. The company also has an opportunity to disclose a target to improve soil health in its production or sourcing practices and to report progress against it.

Solid and air pollution
The company should commit to avoid developing or marketing new chemicals or products with SVHC (substance of very high concern) properties, as well as work on reducing the production of hazardous substances and waste. While the company reports some data on waste and disposal, it has an opportunity to report on the amount of plastic waste generated and proportions directed from or to disposal. It could also report on air quality parameters of emissions of harmful air pollutants and disclose time-bound targets to reduce air pollutants across the most material parts of its value chain.

Water
The company has an opportunity to disclose quantitative evidence of reductions in water withdrawal across its own operations. The company has an opportunity to disclose a time-bound target to reduce water withdrawal across its own operations and reports progress against the target. The company does not report a decrease in water pollution, nor regularly report on water pollution metrics. The company does not disclose targets to reduce water pollution.

Indigenous Peoples’ and land rights
The company does not disclose a commitment to respect Indigenous Peoples’ rights. Also, the company does not disclose its processes to identify and recognise the rights of Indigenous Peoples when activities in its own operations may impact their rights, and describes how it obtains Indigenous Peoples’ free, prior and informed consent.

Safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment
The company has an opportunity to commit to respecting local communities’ right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment. Moreover, it should track its actual or potential negative impacts on the health of local communities.

Act ethically
While the company outlines its approach to lobbying and political engagement on its website, it has an opportunity to formalise this approach in a public policy document. Also, it states that it makes political contributions in the US. However, it could describe whether these are made only by exception, and the criteria for making them. Furthermore, the company could disclose its expenditures on lobbying activities and its requirement for third-party lobbyists to comply with its lobbying and political engagement policy.

Provide and promote decent work
The company could disclose a time-bound target for paying all workers a living wage or state that it has achieved paying all workers a living wage and describe how it works to support its suppliers in paying a living wage. Furthermore, it could disclose the ratio of the basic salary and remuneration of women to men.

Respect human rights
The company has a publicly available policy statement committing it to respect specific workers’ rights in its operations and supply chain but has an opportunity to reference all the ILO fundamental rights at work. Additionally, it states that it takes appropriate actions to cease, prevent or mitigate possible adverse impacts of identified human rights risks. However, it could disclose a global system to act on all its salient human rights issues in all its activities.