Towardsagreener earth: How Coca-Cola is fostering environmental wellness

Pioneered in 1974, World Environment Day is historically celebrated every year on June 5 in more than 140 countries. This day is set aside to commemorate the protection of our environment by raising awareness on emerging environmental issues and encouraging people, businesses and governments to take necessary steps to help protect the environment.

This flagship campaign has grown to become a global platform for public outreach as this year sees diverse stakeholders once again participating in the forum themed “Time for Nature”. This year’s theme focuses on nature and is a call to action to stop the loss and degradation of our natural world, as human beings all have a role to play in preserving nature for future generations.

Throughout history, human progress has been intrinsically tied to the management of waste due to its effect on public and environmental health. Streets, and more generally open spaces in cities, have often been used as receptacles for urban waste. In our oceans, the prevalence of waste threatens life below water and extinction for some. Waste management has affected human history in many ways just as it will in the future.

At the Coca-Cola Company, the environment is a critical passion point as it remains the centrepiece of the company’s vision for a World Without Waste, one of its sustainability campaigns launched in 2018.

As a total beverage company championing change in waste management and disposal, Coca-Cola is reshaping its approach to packaging, with a global goal to help collect and recycle the equivalent of 100 per cent of its packaging by 2030.

With this vision, the company is investing in the planet and in packaging by making more sustainable packaging and by partnering with local communities, NGOs, industry and consumers to help promote packaging collection, proper waste disposal and recycling.

This campaign is driven by largely focusing on penetrative behavioural change models in partnership with local organisations that have unique expertise in community mobilisation and who are able to work seamlessly in some of the communities where Coca-Cola’s beverages are consumed daily.

The Coca-Cola System in Nigeria under its World Without Waste campaign has thrived through several strategic partnerships structured around three pillars – design, collect and partner.

The design pillar is centred around how Coca-Cola is investing in innovation to build a better package and explore packaging-free alternatives for delivering our products to consumers.

The collect pillar seeks to reduce waste by collecting the same amount of packaging it sells for reuse, help communities identify and better understand their existing recycling and collection challenges; motivate consumers to recycle their packages and create a viable supply of reusable materials, while the partner pillar speaks to work together to support a healthy, debris-free environment and oceans through driving industry collaboration. This is why Coca-Cola is championing an industry collaboration known as Food and Beverage Recycling Alliance (FBRA), a registered producer responsibility organisation driving food and beverage packaging recovery in Nigeria.

Other NGO-led programmes sponsored by Coca-Cola through its philanthropic arm, The Coca-Cola Foundation include; The Recycling Scheme for Women and Youth Empowerment (RESWAYE) under the New World Programme in partnership with a local NGO, Mental and Environmental Development Initiative for Children (MEDIC). The programme drives sustainable environment education, women empowerment, and job creation through plastic waste recovery from at-risk natural spaces and water bodies along 16 coastal communities in Ibeju Lekki, with a $100,000 grant from The Coca-Cola Foundation.

With grants of over $800,000 received from the Foundation, several recycling and women empowerment programs are being implemented to address the issue of environmental protection while empowering women who are significant pillars of the environment. Some of these programmes include the Clean Up Naija and RecyclesPay under the African Clean-Up Initiative, the ‘Cash for Trash’ targeted at setting up eight recycling hubs under the Initiative for the Advancement of Waste Management in Africa; Plastics 2 Resources by Global Shapers designed to change the behaviour of citizens on waste disposal and the S.H.A.P.E Programme organised in partnership with Whitefield Foundation.

Two of such programmes, Clean Up Naija and RecyclesPay, run a series of volunteer-led clean-up events in Lagos where recyclable bottles are exchanged for school fees in low tuition schools thereby helping to keep Nigerian children in schools while empowering parents and engendering a recycling culture at the same time.

Modern waste management has come far and with recycling and other advances, it is poised to go further. With 10 more years left on its 2030 mandate of a World Without Waste, Coca-Cola looks well on its way to achieving possibly bigger milestones than it might have set for its business; while ultimately inspiring an environmental awareness in the lives of the people it is committed to serve. World Environment Day has historically been celebrated every year on June 5 to encourage action for the protection of our environment.

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