Coca-Cola is dramatically scaling back its plastic promises

Coca-Cola changed its "voluntary environmental goals" this week. (Florian Gaertner/Photothek/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)

NEW YORK CITY -

Coca-Cola is scaling back its packaging sustainability goals, igniting outrage from environmental activists.

The beverage company, which has long been criticized for being one of the world’s top producer of plastic pollutants, changed its “voluntary environmental goals” this week. It now aims to use 35 per cent to 40 per cent recycled material in its packaging by 2035 — a drastic reduction from its previous goal of 50 per cent by 2030.

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Coca-Cola explained in a press release that its “evolution is informed by learnings gathered through decades of work in sustainability, periodic assessment of progress and identified challenges.”

Coke is also changing its recycling goal. In 2018, Coca-Cola announced that by 2030 it wanted to recycle the plastic equivalent of every bottle it put out into the world. That’s been reduced to “ensure the collection” of 70 per cent to 75 per cent bottles and cans entering the market every year without naming an specific timeline.

Pollution from single-use plastic remains a major problem. A recent report from the Minderoo Foundation found that companies are producing record amounts of plastic despite stated efforts to be more sustainable. Plastic is problematic because it’s mostly made from polymers created from dangerous fossil fuels.

“We remain committed to building long-term business resilience and earning our social license to operate through our evolved voluntary environmental goals,” Bea Perez, executive vice president for sustainability and strategic partnerships for the Coca‑Cola Company, said in a press release. “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.”

In response, environmental group Oceana bashed Coca-Cola for its “short-sighted, irresponsible” changes that are “worthy of widespread condemnation by its customers, its employees, its investors, and governments worried about the impact of plastics on our oceans and health.”

“The company’s new and weak recycling-related pledges won’t make a dent in its overall plastic use,” Matt Littlejohn, Oceana’s senior vice president of strategic initiatives, said in a statement. “Coca-Cola’s investors and governments around the world should take notice and take steps to hold the company accountable.”

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Earlier this year, Coca-Cola rolled out new bottles for all versions of Coke sodas (i.e. zero sugar, diet, original, etc.) that are made from 100 per cent recycled plastic. The company estimated that the new bottles will reduce 83 million pounds of plastic used in its US supply chain, the equivalent of two billion bottles.

Coca-Cola was named as the world’s top plastic polluter for the sixth-consecutive year in 2023 by the environmental organization Break Free from Plastic. Its waste count was 33,830, out of 537,719 pieces of plastic waste the non-profit audited across 40 countries, with Coca-Cola bottles being the most common item found discarded, often in public spaces such as parks and beaches.

In a statement, Break Free from Plastic that Coca-Cola’s “latest move is a masterclass in greenwashing, ditching previously announced reuse targets, and choosing to flood the planet with more plastic they can’t even collect and recycle effectively.”