Environment Forum
Global environmental challenges
Coke’s new look: polar-bear white
Coca-Cola has one of the most recognizable brands on the planet: the red can with the white letters. World Wildlife Fund has an equally eye-catching logo: a black-and-white panda. This week, the two are joining forces to change the Coke can’s look from red to white. It’s meant to raise awareness and money to find a safe haven for polar bears, listed as a threatened species because their icy Arctic habitat is melting under their paws due to climate change.
In a project called Arctic Home, Coke plans to turn 1.4 billion of its soft-drink cans white for the first time in its history, replacing the familiar red with an image of a mother polar bear and two cubs making their way across the Arctic. There will also be white bottle caps on other drinks the company sells. The new look is to show up on store shelves from November 1 through February 2012.
The whole point is to raise money to protect a far-north area where summer sea ice will probably persist the longest, WWF and Coke said in a statement. The Arctic Home plan is to work with local residents to manage as much as 500,000 square miles of territory to provide a home for polar bears.
Coke and polar bears are something of a classic combination, according to the company’s Katie Bayne, who said in a statement that the big white bears were first introduced in the beverage-maker’s advertising in 1922. But the color change is more than tin-deep. Coca-Cola is making an initial $2 million donation to World Wildlife Fund to support polar bear conservation work. Those who buy the white cans can text the package code to 357357 to make individual donations of $1, or donate online at ArcticHome.com. The company plans to match all donations made with a package code by March 15 up to $1 million.
“Polar bears inspire the imagination,” Carter Roberts, CEO and president of WWF, said in a statement. “They’re massive, powerful, beautiful and they live nowhere else except the Arctic. Their lives are intimately bound up with sea ice, which is now melting at an alarming rate. By working with Coca-Cola, we can raise the profile of polar bears and what they’re facing, and most importantly, engage people to work with us, to help protect their home.”
Photo credits: REUTERS/Geoff York/World Wildlife Fund (World Wildlife Fund photograph taken along the western shore of Hudson Bay in November 2010 shows a female polar bear with two cubs near Churchill, Canada, in this image released to Reuters on February 9, 2011.
New Coke cans (World Wildlife Fund/Coca-Cola)
from Mario Di Simine:
Coke says green strategy will win business
Having an integrated clean technology strategy will be a big part of winning business in the 21st century, a Coca-Cola executive told Reuters.com on Monday, and its investments in refrigeration will likely have the biggest impact on that strategy long-term.
The world's biggest soft drinks maker has hooked up with Greenpeace on an initiative to eliminate hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) -- greenhouse gases with a high warming effect -- from its refrigeration and cooling equipment by 2015, said Jeff Seabright, Coke's vice president for Environment & Water Resources.
“We have about 10 million pieces of equipment that run in 200 countries around the world every day, and although we’re only 1 percent of the commercial refrigeration market we have an opportunity to really lead on this,” he said.
Coke is also investing indirectly to keep ahead of the curve on new frontier technologies.
Seabright said Coke has around $70 million in two clean tech venture capital funds, DJF Element and Rockport Capital and that, in addition to expecting better than market rate returns, such investments give it a front-row seat for the latest technologies.
“We’ve clearly identified sustainable not as a fad or as sort of a nice to-do; this is going to define what it means to win in the world of business in the 21st century,” he said. “Understanding things like sustainable agriculture, understanding what’s happening with water stress around the world in part as a product of climate-induced stress, understanding how to manage energy inputs and impacts on your business. These things are today big parts of our cost structure, a big part of our footprint and increasingly are going to a big part of what it’s going to take to win as a business.”
Water, packaging and energy and climate change are the three critical components of Coke's environmental sustainability, Seabright said. One area it is now actively exploring is sustainable agriculture.
Coke sets targets for cuts in water, emissions
Coca-Cola is the latest American brand working to improve its environmental credentials with a sweeping new program that pledges to improve water efficiency and reduce carbon dioxide emissions throughout its massive global system.
The soft drink maker today said that through a partnership with environmental group WWF, it has commited to eliminating 50 billion liters of water from its bottling plants by 2012 by improving water efficiency by 20 percent over 2004 levels. Coke’s announcement comes a few months after General Electric said it would cut water usage by 20 percent by 2012.
The beverage industry has increasingly become a target for environmentalists, who say plastic soda and water bottles add to landfills while the companies themselves use too much energy producing and shipping bottles across the world.
Coke also pledged to promote more sustainable agricultural practices, initially focusing on sugar cane production. It will work with two additional crops beginning next year.
The water initatives build on an agreement Coke struck last year with WWF in which it vowed to “return to communities and to nature an amount of water water equivalent to what we use in all of our beverages and their production.” Coke at the time said it would commit to specific targets for reducing water usage this year.
Coke’s biggest challenge is reducing its carbon or water footprint while its business keeps growing. The company said it plans to “grow the business, not the carbon system-wide.” That goal will prevent the release of more than 2 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2015 — about the equivalent of planting 600,000 acres of trees. In developed countries, Coke will reduce emissions by 5 percent from 2004 levels by 2015.
Thank you Nick. It should also be noted that 30,000 children(mostly in Africa and India) die each and every day from treatable diseases brought on by dysentery and a lack of adequate medical care. This is the legacy of Coca- Cola and Nestle as well as mining companies entering into agreements with underdeveloped towns to access their well water supplies. Quite often these corporations and their subsidiaries pump the aquifers dry leaving town people to rely on rain and river water which is either scarce or bacteria infested.Thomas Jefferson stated ” The Creator has endowed man with certain inalienable rights. Among these rights are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” In my view Jefferson is stating that these rights are “among” the inalienable rights of man and that there are more. John Locke would certainly agree and so do I.Is access to water and land necessary to sustain life? What about Health care in a world increasingly contaminated by the activities of industry? Is Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness available only to those who can purchase land and water? I for one think we should expand our understanding of the rights of man. We have expanded our understanding of every thing else.I have no doubt that the nationalization of land, resources and other reforms in developing nations around the world are in response to human suffering generated by the activities of multi-national corporations that once did business in those countries. Are these consequences that this type of business model has brought about acceptable. Do they do anything to promote better relations amongst nations and secure peace? These corporations have certainly secured profits, but at what price? What roll can we play in all of this?
Fools, their money and FREEDOM will soon be parted.
There is no reason to put the polar bear on any list but Dangerous – When you get too close. A study, ongoing since 1964, shows that there has been at least a 20% increase in the polar bear population in Alaska to date. Polar bears don’t need any help. Coke and the WWF are a scam to relieve people of there money, just like Global Warming is. Oh…BTW, polar bears can swim over 100 miles at a time. Look up the facts people!
How in the heck is a carbon credit going to solve the so called “Global Warming Problem?” IT’S NOT! The CO2 will still be here and people like Al Gore are going to become filthy rich from it, while you and me become dirt poor. Isn’t that wonderful?
How did the “Ice Age” end, over 10,000 years ago? The Ice melted!
Blame God. It certainly didn’t melt from SUV’s, Industry, People, Bar-B-Q’s, Farming, Excess CO2(plant food), etc.
Wake Up! The EPA is nothing more that a “USA put to a slow death” organization. AMEN.