COCA - COLA JAPAN’S 2030 PACKAGING VISION SEES A WORLD WITHOUT WASTE

By Julian Ryall

From canned coffee and energy drinks to bottled water, fruit juices, green tea, ginger ale, and the drink that made the company a household name around the world, Coca-Cola markets more than 800 products in Japan. A business on that scale would typically consume vast amounts of raw materials and produce a great deal of trash—but the company has ambitions to help achieve a world without waste.

*Coca-Cola Japan President Jorge Garduño and actress Haruka Ayase at the May 13 press event.*

In May, the Shibuya-based unit of the global beverage giant announced that more of its bottled products on sale here are adopting 100-percent recycled plastic material, known as rPET, including those from Coca-Cola and Georgia Japan Craftsman.

As a result, American Chamber of Commerce in Japan Corporate Sustaining Member Coca-Cola (Japan) Co., Ltd. and its five bottling partners—The Coca-Cola System in Japan—will be able to cut CO2 emissions by as much as 60 percent per bottle, meaning a reduction of about 35,000 tons per year. It will also equate to approximately 30,000 tons saved by not utilizing new plastic from petroleumbased materials.

Vision for Tomorrow

Coca-Cola Japan unveiled its 2030 Packaging Vision in January 2018 and raised the bar with higher targets in July 2019. The vision is designed to promote bottle-to-bottle recycling—the collection and recycling of post-consumption PET bottles to transform them into new PET bottles—and to completely eliminate the use of newly produced petroleum-based materials in its PET bottles by 2030.

The first 100-percent rPET bottles were introduced for I LOHAS water last March and the label-free version of the product the following month. Also last year, some 28 percent of the bottles used in Coca-Cola’s soft drink business were made of recycled PET plastic. But the company intends to boost that to 50 percent by the end of 2022, as it continues its shift to the use of 100-percent rPET for its flagship lines.

And by 2030, 90 percent of each bottle will come from recycled plastics, with 10 percent from plant-derived plastics.

At a press conference on May 13, Coca-Cola Japan President Jorge Garduño unveiled the company’s latest plans: “I am glad to announce that, on May 31, the Coca-Cola System will be introducing 100-percent recycled PET bottles for our flagship brands, Coca-Cola and Georgia, in addition to I LOHAS. I believe this step puts us on an accelerated pace towards realization of a world without waste.”

Sustainable Pillars

To meet that goal, Coca-Cola’s Packaging Vision has three pillars:

Design
Collection
Partnerships

In addition to using sustainable materials in its bottles, the company is reducing the amount of PET plastic in each bottle. A 1.5-liter bottle of Coca-Cola weighed 75 grams in 1982, but a mere 42 grams in 2012.

The label-free bottles for I LOHAS water are easier to sort and dispose of because individual bottles bear only a stylish design worked into the plastic. The product is only sold in cases, with the cardboard packaging bearing information about the ingredients and other statutory data that is usually found on the product label.

The company supports Japan’s PET bottle collection drive, which already sees 93 percent of bottles being collected, thanks to the efforts of companies, government, and communities. In its sustainability report, Coca-Cola said it wants to avoid a single one of its cans or bottles ending up in the ocean. In 2019, when 250 of its employees took part in a beach cleanup campaign in Chiba Prefecture, they collected enough litter to fill a two-ton truck.

*The Coca-Cola and Georgia coffee lineups have joined I LOHAS in 100-percent-recycled PET bottles.*

Under its partnership program, in 2019 Coca-Cola worked with the Nippon Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to social innovation. The goal was to identify the mechanisms by which waste is transferred from land to Japan’s rivers. With the joint report, it was hoped that previously unknown routes marine litter takes could be identified. That knowledge could then be used to devise effective prevention strategies and promote the cyclical reuse of PET bottles and other plastic resources, the company said.

Cut Waste and Purify

Another area in which the company is working to reduce its consumption and waste is water. Coca-Cola is introducing measures to cut the amount of water that it uses during the production process. In 2019, the company used 16.27 million cubic meters of water, a year-on-year reduction of 1.84 million cubic meters.

Coca-Cola plants are designed to ensure that wastewater, used for the washing of packaging and equipment, or for cooling, is appropriately processed before being released into sewers or rivers. The wastewater is purified on site using microorganisms in the activated sludge process and is verified against standards specified under Japanese law and the Coca-Cola Operating Requirements, also known as KORE.

Coca-Cola conducts surveys to identify plant water sources—and the vulnerabilities of those sources—as well as participates in water stewardship initiatives around the world. The company follows the same tried-and-tested path in Japan, locating water sources for its manufacturing facilities based on scientific surveys, assessing their vulnerabilities, and then formulating source protection plans.

Solid Plan

It’s a similar story with solid waste at Coca-Cola facilities, with a portion of used tea leaves recycled into livestock feed or agricultural fertilizer. The Tokai plant of Coca-Cola Bottlers Japan operates a methane fermentation system to convert coffee grounds, used tea leaves, and wastewater treatment sludge into an energy source.

Another area that has been addressed is distribution and transportation, with the company optimizing delivery and sales logistics by centralizing distribution bases and reviewing routes to maximize efficiency. Coca-Cola staff are undergoing training to promote eco-driving, the company’s fleet of vehicles is being reduced, and hybrid and other low-energy vehicles are being introduced.

In a further effort to preserve the environment, the company’s new generation of vending machines are cooled using hydrofluorocarbon-free refrigerants, which have no impact on the ozone layer and minimal global warming potential. All 880,000 machines are also equipped with LED lighting as standard.

People Matter

In parallel with the company’s commitment to the environment, Coca-Cola is just as invested in providing a fair and free working space for its employees, of whom there are 20,000 at 22 plants across the country.

As of December 2020, fully 42.2 percent of the Coca-Cola Japan workforce comprised women, with the ratio of men to women close to one-to-one. Similarly, 30.7 percent of the company’s leadership positions in December 2019 were held by women, a vast improvement on the average of eight percent across all companies in Japan.

The company has been carrying out a wide-ranging reform of its global operations since last year, designed to bring about future growth. The percentage of women in management roles is seen as one of the most important issues in that evolution. This means that some 35.7 percent of Coca-Cola’s leadership positions in Japan and South Korea were held by women as of March 2021.

The aim, the company says, is to create working environments that are “truly diverse” and it will continue to make efforts to promote the employment, skills development, and career progression of women. Globally, the target is to increase the ratio of women in leadership positions to 50 percent by 2030, although Coca-Cola Japan is already moving quickly and is aiming to hit its target by 2025.

The company is actively supporting its LGBTQ+ staff and employees with disabilities. Respect for diversity is part of the company’s core values in terms of its growth and sustainability strategies.

It has been part of the Valuable 500 disability inclusion organization since January, and is currently drawing up employee welfare programs and work regulations that provide same-gender partners with equal treatment as spouses in a legally recognized marriage.

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COCA - COLA JAPAN’S 2030 PACKAGING VISION SEES A WORLD WITHOUT WASTE

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