Coca-Cola has come under fire for scaling back its packaging sustainability targets, sparking backlash from environmental groups.
The beverage giant, long criticized for being one of the world’s largest plastic polluters, revised its “voluntary environmental goals” this week. The company now plans to use 35% to 40% recycled material in its packaging by 2035, a significant drop from its earlier target of 50% by 2030.
In a press release, Coca-Cola explained that this shift was based on “learnings gathered through decades of work in sustainability, periodic assessment of progress, and identified challenges.”
The company is also revising its recycling ambitions. Back in 2018, Coca-Cola pledged to recycle the equivalent of every plastic bottle it produced by 2030. Now, the company’s goal has been revised to “ensure the collection” of 70% to 75% of bottles and cans entering the market each year, but without setting a specific timeline.
Single-use plastic pollution continues to be a pressing issue. A recent report by the Minderoo Foundation revealed that despite companies’ claims to adopt more sustainable practices, plastic production continues to hit record highs. Plastic remains a major environmental concern due to its composition of polymers derived from harmful fossil fuels.
Bea Perez, Coca-Cola’s executive vice president for sustainability and strategic partnerships, defended the changes, stating, “We remain committed to building long-term business resilience and earning our social license to operate through our evolved voluntary environmental goals. These challenges are complex and require us to drive more effective and efficient resource allocation and work collaboratively with partners to deliver lasting positive impact.”
However, environmental group Oceana condemned the revised goals, calling them “short-sighted” and “irresponsible.” Matt Littlejohn, Oceana’s senior vice president of strategic initiatives, argued that Coca-Cola’s “new and weak recycling-related pledges won’t make a dent in its overall plastic use” and urged investors and governments to hold the company accountable.
Earlier this year, Coca-Cola introduced new bottles made from 100% recycled plastic for all of its Coke products. The company estimated that the new bottles would eliminate 83 million pounds of plastic from its U.S. supply chain, equivalent to two billion bottles.
Despite these efforts, Coca-Cola was named the world’s top plastic polluter for the sixth consecutive year in 2023 by the environmental organization Break Free from Plastic. The company’s bottles were the most commonly found plastic items discarded in public spaces, with a total of 33,830 pieces of Coca-Cola waste among 537,719 pieces surveyed across 40 countries.
Break Free from Plastic criticized Coca-Cola’s revised sustainability approach, calling it a “masterclass in greenwashing” and accusing the company of abandoning previously announced reuse targets. The organization warned that Coca-Cola’s new plan would flood the planet with more plastic it cannot collect or recycle effectively.
