Corporate Accountability International Press Release, April 22, 2009, ATLANTA – This Earth Day, Coke is using its annual shareholders’ meeting to spin the corporation’s image green. However, the forum is a reminder of the gulf between Coke’s rhetoric and its action.
“In the last year, Coke split its time – opposing progress on sustainability on the one hand and advertising its social responsibility on the other,” said Gigi Kellett, national spokesperson for the Think Outside the Bottle campaign. “Well, that’s leaving a lot of people asking, ‘what is the real thing, really?’”
Kellett’s organization, Corporate Accountability International, delivered 6,000 comments calling on Coke to dispense with its high-priced PR and answer the popular demand that it label the source of its Dasani bottled water, provide better information on its quality, and stop threatening local control of water when operating bottling plants.
Corporate Accountability is highlighting the following Coke activities at the meeting:
Opposing improved water quality reporting. For the second year in a row, Coke executives challenged a shareholder resolution with the SEC on technical grounds that would have encouraged the corporation to provide more complete and timely information to consumers on the quality and testing of its Dasani bottled water and other Coke brands .
Opposing city efforts to support public water. When the U.S. Conference of Mayors proposed a resolution to cut city bottled water budgets to reduce waste and promote tap water, Coke and its trade group, the American Beverage Association, aggressively lobbied against the resolution.
Opposing bottled water source labeling. Coke continues to refuse to follow the lead of Pepsi’s Aquafina in labeling the source of Dasani. In 2007, Pepsi agreed to print “public water source” on Aquafina labels. Dasani also comes from the same source as tap.
Bottling despite drought. When a report funded by Coke suggested the corporation stop bottling in water parched areas in India, Coke’s India Division told a reporter the answer was, “not to stop bottling.” The pumps kept running, and this same pattern has born out even in Georgia, where city rationing during drought conditions didn’t preclude Coke from continuing to churn out its products, including bottled tap water, at full-tilt.
“Shareholders have a right to know that their company is continuing to cover up its damaging practices with glossy corporate social responsibility reports,” said Richard Girard from the Polaris Institute. “Claiming water neutrality and highlighting sustainable initiatives does not change the negative and very real impacts Coca-Cola has on communities around the world.”
Much of Coke’s green PR centers on a murky concept called “water neutrality” which may turn out to be yet another Madoffian ponzi scheme allowing Coke to rob Peter to pay Paul, as it were: running one community dry to hydrate another. And given Coke’s track record, the scheme has critics asking, “should we really be entrusting the distribution of water resources to private corporations?”
Coke has also sought praise for building a recycling plant to manage a small fraction of its waste stream, while at the same time opposing bottle recycling bills across the country. Each year, billions of pounds of plastic waste from Coke products wind up in landfills, incinerators, or as roadside litter.
“People don’t get kudos for picking up after themselves, nor should an enormously profitable global corporation – it’s just the right thing to do,” said Daniel Stockton, a student organizer at University of Georgia. “Since as young people we are inheriting what this corporation leaves behind, we’re just asking Coke to do ‘the real thing’ and respond directly to our concerns and stop deflecting.”
Contacts: Kristin Urquiza, 617-412-7524
Sara Joseph, 617-784-5278
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