Our Approach to Stakeholder Engagement and Research

The Coca‑Cola Company’s purpose is to refresh the world and make a difference.

We at Coca‑Cola Africa believe that companies must play a role in creating the systemic change necessary to achieve a more just and equitable society, a more sustainable economy and a healthier planet. We believe that meaningful partnerships can drive collective action and build shared opportunities for people and communities. And transparency is an important component to our approach.

This page provides information on our approach to partnering and working with stakeholders across Africa. For more details on our research principles:

Bottling Partners

We are a global business that operates on a local scale. We are able to create global reach with local focus because of the strength of the Coca‑Cola system, which is comprised of our company and our bottling partners worldwide.

The primary way that our products reach the marketplace starts with The Coca‑Cola Company, which manufactures and sells concentrates, beverage bases and syrups to bottling operations. Coca‑Cola also owns the brands and is responsible for consumer brand marketing initiatives. Our bottling partners manufacture, package, merchandise and distribute final branded beverages to our customers and vending partners, who then sell our products to consumers.

All bottling partners work closely with customers – such as small retailers, supermarkets, restaurants, street vendors, convenience stores, entertainment venues among others – to execute localized strategies developed in partnership with our company. 

Stakeholder Engagement

In collaboration with our Bottling partners, we undertake a variety of activities with diverse partners across a range of different areas and have included an overview of key activities for each below.

Academia

Academic experts advance societal understanding of factors relevant to our business including, but not limited to, human health and wellbeing, product packaging and environmental stewardship. We engage academics to ensure we stay appraised of the latest research and perspectives that inform our business strategy. In all of the work we undertake, we are guided by our policies including our Code of Business Conduct, Research Principles.

Communities

Supporting the local communities we are privileged to operate in is part of our DNA. One of the ways that we do this is through The Coca‑Cola Foundation (TCCF), our company's primary international philanthropic arm. Our focus areas include disaster relief, water access, waste management and women and youth economic empowerment. Across Africa and in partnership with NGOs, Coca‑Cola in Africa, its bottling partners, the "Coca‑Cola System" and TCCF, have been deploying a range of resources, including capabilities, funds and products to support governments, communities and local economies in their urgent efforts to contain the spread and impact of the Coronavirus since its outbreak on the continent.

The Coca‑Cola System committed $13m to support the continent through the various phases of the Covid-19 pandemic. In addition, TCCF granted $4m to international and local NGOs and an additional $2 million for “Project Last Mile” to support vaccine rollouts in eight African countries: Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Ghana, Eswatini, Mozambique, South Africa and Tanzania. An outline of grants paid in 2020 – including organization name, payment and description of activity – can be found in our report on 2020 Charitable Contributions. The company strives to build sustainable and resilient communities across the 54 countries in which we operate across Africa. To read more about Coca‑Cola’s ESG priority areas, click here:  2020 Business & ESG Report.

Customers

Our customers range from large stores like supermarkets and e-commerce to small retailers. We work closely with our customers to improve our service and help them achieve their sustainability goals (for example, truckload optimization to reduce carbon emissions). In all of the work we undertake with our customers, we are guided by our policies including our Code of Business Conduct, Privacy Policy and Prohibition on Cartel Activity.

Employees

Our employees are a diverse, community of people who thirst for more. We act in ways to improve people's lives, from our employees to those who touch our business to the many communities we call home. Just as we develop our brands in new and innovative ways, it is important that we support our employees to continuously grow. We are an equal opportunity employer and to ensure fairness in all our employment related decisions. Our Code of Business Conduct serves to guide the actions of our employees consistent with our Company values. The Code helps our people do the right thing and play by the rules wherever we operate around the world.

Government and political engagement

We seek to work collaboratively and transparently with governments across Africa. We believe in responsible corporate governance and participate in the political process to support the needs of our business and customers globally, while keeping with our values, character and long-term mission. Because we have a diverse array of constituencies to serve – customers, distributors, bottlers, small businesses, government, community partners, shareowners and more – we consider it our duty, and our responsibility, to make our views clear to those who have the potential to impact the laws, regulations and policies that can influence our global business.

Non-government organizations (NGOs)

We believe we must work together by forming meaningful partnerships with NGOs that create shared opportunities for communities and people across Africa. Multi-stakeholder collaboration is critical if we intend to make significant strides toward addressing questions of public health and business interest, including efforts to reduce added sugars, eliminating plastic waste, reducing carbon emissions, ensuring access to clean water and achieving racial equity. Our leadership regularly engages with NGOs such as World Wildlife Fund for Nature, International Red Cross Society, AMREF Health Africa among others or through platforms like the Regional Action Group for Africa (RAGA) which is part of the World Economic Forum (WEF). The insights from these engagements inform and help deliver business and ESG goals. We take a similar collaborative, multi-stakeholder approach to our efforts to promote systemic change through public policy.

Peer companies and Trade associations

Working together as an industry, including with peer companies is critical to further action across around sustainability goals, business goals and collective support towards national development agenda. We hold a number of board positions or membership with Organizations such as the Corporate Council on Africa, Beverage Association of South Africa, Consumer Goods Council of South Africa, East Africa Business Council, COMESA Business Council, American Chambers of Commerce among others.

Coca‑Cola Africa is also partnering with likeminded companies to support local recycling sectors alongside local communities, NGOs, industry, consumers, and government to collect and divert packaging waste from landfills and oceans across Africa:

§  Founded in 2004, we are an active member of the PET Recycling Company (PETCO) in South Africa which now collects and recycles an average of 65% of all PET bottles in the country. We were also instrumental in establishing a similar ‘PETCO’ in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Tanzania and we intend to replicate this across Africa.

§  In March 2019, we helped to launch the African Plastics Recycling Alliance with Diageo, Nestle and Unilever to transform plastics recycling infrastructure across sub-Saharan Africa.

Summary

Through the above, we have outlined the key types of stakeholders we engage with through our local operations.

We also have dedicated transparency page for our global operation which can be found here:

Collaborations with key stakeholders, both internal and external, are essential to achieving our purpose. Throughout this page we have aimed to provide a holistic overview of our stakeholder engagement, focusing on our approach, and related data and policies.