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Green Olympic Sponsors: Coca-Cola…going blue?
(Image via The Economist)
There isn’t a blog out there who hasn’t reminded us that green is the color of money and trees, can be turned to ‘gold,’ or found in ‘red’ China.
Green isn’t enough anymore, though, because now we have a new color scheme to overuse—blue, like the color of water. Coco-Cola, and other companies, like General Electric, are starting to use water in their China CSR platforms because countries they operate in, like China (and the rest of the world for that matter) don’t have enough of it. Water is also a natural fit for Coca-Cola’s CSR focus since the company has come under fire for poor practice–apparently, it takes 2.5 liters of water to make just one liter of its product.
Then consider how much water is required to host the Olympic games, plus the fact that the host city has a water shortage but is run by a government who is bound to provide clean water at any cost.
What you come out with is a very sensible move by Coca-Cola to put water and China in the center of their CSR stage. As the company’s manager of environmental issues said, “we need to manage this issue, or it will manage us.”
In a speech in Beijing, Coca-Cola’s CEO E. Neville Isdell stood next Chinese government representatives and pledged to reduce, recycle and replenish the water they use for their product. One of the ways the will do this is by partnering with WWF in a multi-million dollar, long-term, international CSR program to help clean up China’s critical river, the Yangtze. Check out Rich Brubaker’s analysis of Coke’s initiatives on China Crossroads: “Is Coke Doing Enough? - Part 1.”
Ideally, the program in China will help Coca-Cola in the following ways:
- Manage and support two watersheds on the Yangtze. (Watersheds are important because they carry rain and melted snow down to rivers, so what happens to the watershed affects water quality downstream for everyone.)
- Help Chinese bottling plants develop better water use and stewardship practices. (Coca-Cola has run into trouble before about how much water they use in their bottling plants in Third World countries.)
- Work with other industries and water users along the Yangtze. (Chinese industry and society depend on the quality of water in the Yangtze, which is heavily polluted.)
Read more about China’s water problems on the China blog, All Roads Lead to China (thanks Rich!). On a slightly different note, check out this creepy–and wasteful–Olympic souvenir fish key chain.
More interesting articles:
- Water is Beijing’s dirty little Olympics secret
MSNBC - China Diverting Major River to “Water” Beijing Olympics
National Geographic
Tags: Discussion
5 comments for “Green Olympic Sponsors: Coca-Cola…going blue?”
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Erica
Hey Sophia. thanks for linking up!
A couple weeks ago I did a review of Coke on Crossroads called Is Coke Doing enough?and Is Coke Doing enough? Part 2
It was essentially in response to their release of 20 M USD, and I spent quite a bit of time going through their site.
I won’t answer the question, but hope you will all stop in and see some of the questions I asked.
Have a good weekend
R
Sophia,
It was no surprise, given the importance of water to both China and Coca-Cola, along with the growing potential of China as a market for Coke, that Coke chose Beijing as a location to launch it’s comittment to become ‘water neutral.’
Under this comittment, Coca-Cola aims to sponsor or participate in a sufficient amount of water projects so that the aggregate value of these water projects is sufficient to at least offset the aggregate value of water consumption consumed as a result of the company’s operations.
To this end, (according to its web site) the company has sponsored almost seventy water related projects across forty countries.
The project is a wonderful initiative, and the involvement of WWF gives the project a considerable degree of credibility.
Cheers
Andrew
Great post Sophia!
Water stewardship is definitely one of the most pressing environmental issues we are facing. According to the United Nations, if present consumption patterns continue, two-thirds of the world’s population will live in water-stressed conditions by the year 2025!
I commend Coke for leading an industry-wide and global movement to meet the need for safe water. Other beverage companies and companies that use a lot of water (tobacco companies for example) need to follow Coke and step up their water conservation efforts. The key to tackling this problem is collaboration. Besides collaborating with WWF, Coke has also partnered with the United Nations Foundation and USAID.
Sophia
For me, saving two watersheds and saving some money on alumnium/ bottle technologies should really be the starting point… and where all their PR of the program tends to hit me in the wrong space is that they should really be doing a lot more before they go out calling themselves champions.
As a baseline, HSBC also invested 20M USD with WWF…
As an aside from the Coke issue, and more on the general severity of the water conditions in China, Download and read this report. It is one that will be on Crossroads in 12 hours… and it will put a few things in perspective very quickly on WHEN Beijing runs out of water.
R
[...] International recently released a report about Beijing’s water crisis. Read RespChi’s post about Coca-Cola’s CSR efforts to help out with the water situation. And here’s [...]