UNSCREWING THE LID ON COCA-COLA'S GREENWASHING TACTICS

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Exposing top polluting brands as they try to cover up their emissions

Multimedia Production students at UCT conducted research that reveals the extent to which South Africa's leading brands contribute to the destruction of the environment.

Environmental pollution is one of the greatest challenges that we humans face today. The burning of fossil fuels, exhaust fumes from vehicles, improper disposal of landfill waste, and harmful odours from plastic production are all contributing factors to environmental pollution. Human health can also be adversely affected by these factors. Consumers are starting to pay attention to the companies that they buy from and what type of packaging they use on their products. So, brands are beginning to make the shift to sustainable packaging because of the growing consumer demand for more eco-conscious product packaging. A lot of pressure has been placed on these companies to disclose information about their environmental practices and overall performance. The disclosure of this information is also related to companies being exposed of greenwashing. The focus of this article will be on one of the top brands among the youth of South Africa, and how it contributes to climate change.

There is a serious issue of corporate greenwashing among brands. Greenwashing can be described as when a company or organization spends more time and money on marketing themselves as environmentally friendly than on minimizing their environmental impact. The use of sustainable packaging has become more popular over the years and as aforementioned, people have become more aware of the issues that contribute to the earth's destruction. Sustainable packaging is a way of showing that a brand has corporate social responsibility (CSR), in which they are committed to making sure that they contribute less to the destruction of the environment. They make sure that they minimize their businesses' waste, and this is often done through the process of recycling. Although recycling is seen as a good way to keep the environment clean and eliminate single use plastics, brands have gone about this transition incorrectly. Some brands have managed to trick their customers into believing that they are environmentally friendly with the use of tactical marketing tools.

Coca Cola has been repeatedly accused of being one of the most notorious brands contributing to greenwashing. In June 2021, the Coca Cola Company received a lawsuit from Earth Island Institute, a non-profit organization that has dedicated itself to conserving, preserving and restoring our ecosystem. The main reason behind this lawsuit was based on the Coca Cola company’s continuous deception to its customers in perpetuating the idea that they are sustainable and eco-friendly through the false advertising of their products. Furthermore, although Coca-Cola continues to portray this facade to its customers, the Break Free From Plastic (BFFP) movement exposes Coca-Cola to be one of the top plastic polluters in the world in the global brand audit of plastic waste in 2020 for three years in a row.

The Coca Cola Company formed part of the 2020 "A" list for the Carbon Disclosure Project. The Carbon Disclosure Project is a not-for-profit charity that runs the global disclosure system for investors, companies, cities, states and regions to manage their environmental impacts. Coca-Cola reported having plans to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. They have been listed as one of the companies taking action under the science-based targets initiative which is limiting global warming to well-below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C, and they discuss the issue of offsetting. This information provided by the Coca-Cola company raises questions as to whether they are honestly working towards contributing to an eco-friendly environment.

The Coca Cola Company claims that "Our planet matters" through their advertising campaigns and across media platforms. They claim that they act in ways to create a more sustainable and better-shared future, yet they produce 100 billion bottles of plastic per year. The gross carbon emissions of Coca Cola in all three scopes, that amount to 25 237 195, reveals that there is a problem that needs to be addressed in the running of their business. Their scope 3 emissions amount to 22 809 959 metric tonnes of CO2e and this is associated with the packaging of their products. This high number further enhances the problem with the use of plastic in the beverage industry. The issue with plastic is that it takes more than 400 years to decompose. The Coca-Cola company continues to push the idea of making its packaging 100% recyclable by 2025, although they have not met previous targets in relation to recyclable packing the past decade It has been estimated that only 9% of the 8.3 billion tonnes of plastics produced are recycled.

Table 1: C02 Emissions of Coca-Cola's CSR report 2018-2020

	CSR report 2018	CSR report 2019	CSR report 2020
Scope 1	400 598	707 152	687 589
Scope 2	967 668	1 566 421	1 739 647
Scope 3	25 619 331	24 580 947	22 809 959
Total Emissions	26 977 597	26 854 520	25 237 195

Coca-Cola has revealed that 60% of its packaging is either refilled or collected for recycling . If this is the case, what happens to the other 40% of their packaging? Coke bottles are seen everywhere, on our beaches and in our streets, yet they continue to pursue the process of making plastic bottles without considering their impact on the environment. Coca-Cola recently introduced smaller rPET plastic bottles that rolled out to a range of Coca-Cola brands. Though it is recyclable, many environmentalists believe that this a step backwards in sustainability as it only contains a mere 30 ml more than their cans. This would especially be an issue if these “sip sized” bottles are to replace cans in the future as aluminium cans are infinitely recyclable. As an alternative to this, the use of glass and cans are a better solution to solving the current problem that we have with plastic. Making use of glass is a much better alternative as glass can be easily recycled or re-used. The production of glass is less energy consuming, and it saves 50% of energy. Also, glass does not degrade, which means that the glass will remain the same kind of bottle again. Cans, on the other hand, are the most recyclable item in the world. Aluminium cans can be 100% recycled and retain their quality throughout. This process also saves a lot of energy compared to primary production. Recycling, in this case, has proven to be unsustainable and cannot form part of any sound environmental sustainability practice.

Although brands are finally taking baby steps towards sustainable practises, there is nowhere near enough momentum towards achieving the eco-friendly future we so desperately need. As individuals, we can make sure that we make noise and fight against brands such as Coca-Cola because of their negative impact on the environment and generally their lack of accountability. We should be making sure that we pay more attention to the products we use and how supporting certain brands affects the world around us. Those that are the most impactful on a brands sales and the production of their possibly unsustainable packaging are the youth of South Africa. However, anyone can make a difference by picking up a glass bottled cooldrink or a canned drink rather than a plastic one.