Global water strategy

The Coca-Cola Company's global water management strategy has four core areas of focus:

• Plant performance
• Watershed protection
• Community initiatives
• Global awareness and action

Our strategy is built on a comprehensive risk analysis of water resources in the Coca-Cola System around the world. This analysis provides a clear understanding of our water risks on a global and local scale, helps business units define and prioritise the ways we mitigate risk and allows us to track progress in water stewardship.

Our pledge

On 5 June 2007, at WWF's annual meeting in Beijing, the Coca-Cola Company's then Chairman and CEO Neville Isdell announced an ambitious pledge to replace the water we use in our beverages and their production. Our pledge has three core components: reduce, recycle and replenish.

Reduce

We will set specific water efficiency targets for our global operations by 2008. These targets will build on improvements already made in water-use efficiency over the past five years.

Recycle

We are committing to return safely to the environment all water used in our manufacturing processes.

Replenish

We will expand support of a wide range of locally relevant initiatives - including watershed protection, community water access programmes and promotion of efficient agricultural water use.

In addition to this pledge, Coca-Cola Enterprises Commitment 2020 is to establish a water-sustainable operation in which we minimise our water use and have a water-neutral impact on the local communities in which we operate. We'll do this by safely returning the amount of water equivalent to what we use in our beverages and their production to these communities.

CEO Water Mandate

In early 2009 CCE endorsed the CEO Water Mandate of the United Nations Global Compact. In doing so, we pledged to improve water use in our own operations and our supply chain, as well as commit to working with governments and authorities to promote sustainable water management.

WWF partnership

Building on our previous efforts to be good stewards of freshwater resources, the Coca-Cola Company and WWF have combined international strengths and resources. We aim to help conserve and protect fresh water around the world - in our own facilities, in those of our bottling partners and in communities where we operate.

While our partnership is global in scope, many of its commitments will be implemented locally. In 2008, we launched a pilot study in the Netherlands to assess our embedded water footprint throughout our supply chain, especially related to agriculture.

The Global Water Challenge

Since 2005, the Coca-Cola system has developed significant Community Watershed Partnerships, with more than 200 projects in 60 countries
One of these is The Global Water Challenge (GWC).

The GWC was founded as an initiative of the United Nations Foundation with funding and support from The Coca-Cola Company. The idea is to help the international community meet the world's water challenges by increasing awareness of and investment in innovative safe water and sanitation solutions.