CREATING NATURAL CAPITAL THROUGH NATURE-BASED SOLUTIONS

Water stewardship has long been a business imperative for the Coca‑Cola Company. As we mark World Water Day, we highlight our global water stewardship strategy, and how we’re working to measure the impact of some of our key water replenishment projects in Europe through our Phase 2 report: “How to Create Nature Capital through Nature-based Solutions”, published in February 2022.

Water is essential to human life, to the health of our ecosystem and economies, and yet it is under increasing stress due to rising demand and the effect of climate change.

As the world’s largest beverage company, we value water stewardship as one of our key sustainable business priorities. In 2007, we made a global commitment to replenish all of the water we use in our direct products. And for more than six years, we have met and exceeded this goal through about 300 water replenishment programs worldwide. In Europe in 2021 we have returned more than 236% of the water we used in our products through 51 programs.

We continue to work in our own operations, across our value chain and in watersheds worldwide to support water security, with Europe playing a key role in achieving our global ambitions through pioneering projects that are making a difference to communities and the environment daily.

While water replenishment is the main goal of such projects, they show multiple other benefits, such as carbon sequestration, water quality improvement, flood protection, recreation, biodiversity enhancement as well as food and raw materials provisioning. However, it is often difficult to quantify these co-benefits.

Therefore, we have developed and piloted a standardized methodology to account for the ecosystem service benefits of water replenishment in economic terms, which will help us in building a truly comprehensive understanding of the value of nature restoration for both our business and the communities in which we operate.

This new methodology is a starting point for a wider discussion that helps others inside and outside our direct business system. We will continue to engage with our partners and other stakeholders interested in advancing the dialogue to drive the potential forward together.

Download the 2022 progress report “How to Create Nature Capital through Nature-based Solutions” by the Coca‑Cola Company, in partnership with Denkstatt and Easton Consult, here

For further information on the methodology and pilot phase of natural capital assessments, you can find the 2021 edition here