Coca-Cola says it has spent Rs 100 crore to support daily wage workers, and remains focused on enhancing the lives of farmers and protecting the environment.
In a conversation with YourStory, Ishteyaque Amjad, Vice President — Public Affairs and Communication,
He says the company identifies with being local. For example, they source local mangoes called Neelam while selling their brand Maaza in Tamil Nadu. In north India, Kesar mangoes are used in the drink.
When it comes to sustainability,
“A business needs to integrate sustainability as it grows. It cannot be separate from your business. Sustainability is the core today,” says Ishteyaque, who spearheads the company's government relations, policy advocacy, communications and sustainability departments. According to
YourStory (YS): One of the most important areas of sustainability is water usage, but India is facing a water shortage too. How is
Ishteyaque Amjad (IA): When it comes to water, there is an imbalance. We have less than 3 percent freshwater on the earth. So when you look at our beverages, we have to ensure that our water is replenished. For every liter consumed. We need to add back the amount of water and improve water availability.
The water usage ratio in our plants is 1.7 liters for every liter of beverage produced. We have replenished water in India more than three times of what we have produced, and have helped people living in drought-hit areas of Rajasthan, Bundelkhand (Uttar Pradesh), parts of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Maharashtra.
As a beverage company, water quality and availability are vital to our business. Over the last decade, we have set upon a mission to replenish the equivalent of water we use in our beverages.
We are strengthening our water stewardship strategies and our approach towards water stewardship and replenishment consists of 3R(s)– Reduce, Recycle and Replenish.
This has resulted in a 30 percent improvement in our Water Usage Ratio (WUR) through various initiatives – using best-in-class technology, as well as reusing and recycling water being drawn by our bottling partners.
We have created a water replenishment potential equivalent to 124.5 percent of water used by our operations. Our bottling partners have developed close to 300 water replenishment projects across the country.
By the end of 2018, these projects had created a replenishment potential of 11.7 billion litres of water. In addition to this, through the
YS: Coming to waste, plastic bottle pollution is a massive problem and the waste has even reached the bottom of the Marina Trench. How are you addressing this issue and focusing on recycling?
IA: Imagine a world without waste. We have to focus on the design aspect and improve our packaging for sustainability. We need sustainable plastics, for which recycling is the key. Plastic should be collected properly and should not end up in water bodies. But, we know we cannot do it alone. So you need partners.
We negotiate and buy credits from people who recycle PET bottles. Then there are producer responsibility organisations who we work with globally to find solutions to the plastic problem. We need to recycle anything that can be recycled, and not let them end up in rivers and oceans.
We have invested money in this.
To address the growing concern of plastic waste in India, we, along with other 31 companies including PepsiCo India, Bisleri, Diageo, and Reliance Industries, came together in 2019 to launch a packaging waste management venture. We also have several partnerships with UNDP, State Municipal Authorities, The Date With Ocean Foundation (Founding member Afroz Shah), Saahas, Chintan, Hasirudala, and the American India Foundation to contribute towards achieving our vision of making sure plastics are recycled. We work with Material Recovery Centers (MRFs) for this purpose.
IA: The efficiency of farmers is very low in India because of old agricultural practices and small farms. Our partners, Jain Irrigation, help them with processes to grow good quality fruit. With better fruit and better-tasting product, we have closed the loop between the consumer and the farmer. We say it is economic and financial sustainability in the farm-to-fork relationship.
You need to create a circular economy. We have worked with orange farmers in Maharashtra to increase the juice content in the fruit and make the pulp better. We did a project in Uttarakhand for apples, and we have found a partner there to improve the gestation of the fruit from seven years to two years. Similarly, we have worked with litchi farmers in Bihar and grape farmers in Tamil Nadu. Over a period, the company launched Unnati Mango, Unnati Orange, Unnati Apple, and Unnati Litchi, with other partnerships in the pipeline across various states of India.
These programmes accelerate growth in the fruit processing industry in India by creating demand through new specialty fruit-based beverages. We are transforming the supply chain from grove to glass, benefiting farmers by aiding incremental yield, and applying modern agriculture practices (GAPS). We want to contribute to sustainable agriculture and help in achieving the national vision of doubling farmers’ income by 2022. We took a decision to go dark with our advertisements and repurpose the resources towards the COVID-19 relief initiatives. Specifically, for India, we committed Rs 100 crore for COVID-19. Through these funds, we supported communities with immediate relief measures based on the need assessments.
IA: We all know that COVID-19 pandemic impacted nations, economies and people globally in ways beyond imagination. Our first response to the pandemic was taking cognizance of the well-being of our people within the entire
We revisited our entire strategy and realigned our focus on three strategic pillars of our operations – people, community and business continuity.
The programmes benefited over two million people through safety feeding programmes, while also hydrating one crore migrants and daily wagers through company beverages.
For further information on the company's India operations and its products, please visit: www.coca-colaindia.com and www.hccb.in Follow us on twitter at twitter.com/CocaCola_Ind , or on facebook.
This article was originally published in YourStory
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