Transformative Results: Partnering to Conserve Water

Transformative Results: Partnering to Conserve Water

With the ambitious goal of inspiring a global movement to conserve water, WWF and The Coca-Cola Company are working across several fronts: within manufacturing plants to improve water efficiency and reduce climate impacts, throughout the company’s supply chain to promote sustainable agriculture, and on the ground  to conserve priority river basins.  Working together over the past four years, our partnership has seen impressive results, including: 

Conserving priority river basins: Many of the partnership’s key successes can be seen in conservation initiatives taking place in seven of the world’s most important river basins including the Yangtze, Mekong, Danube, and Rio Grande/Rio Bravo rivers; Lake Niassa; the Mesoamerican reef catchments; and the rivers and streams of the southeastern United States.  

In the Mekong Delta, a freshwater source for 60 million people, the partnership is working in Tram Chim National Park in Vietnam, one of the last natural wetlands of the once vast Plain of Reeds ecosystem. In 2009, the partnership advocated for wetland policy reform and helped to pass a new park management statute. This statute − the first of its kind − will significantly change how wetlands in Vietnam can be managed by allowing parks to adopt ecosystem-based wetland management practices. The statute has already been approved and set in place locally at Tram Chim, which is serving as a first, best-practice example. The statute is expected to receive permanent ratification by the provincial government by 2011.  

In 2010, the team removed several dikes within the park’s boundaries, and this year the positive benefits of that effort began to reveal themselves. For instance, even in the dry season, bird and fish populations have increased in all areas where dikes were removed—a major indicator of improvement in the health of the river and its surrounding habitat. Water quality also has improved considerably, with water samples in these areas showing higher levels of dissolved oxygen than in areas with more dikes. This success in turn gave the team the evidence and leverage it needed to advocate and gain approval for a major breakthrough—extending the reach of our work to a dike that is on the border of the park. Lowering this external dike will allow Tram Chim’s waterways to connect to the Mekong for the first time in nearly 30 years. Construction on this project is expected to begin in 2011.

Improving water efficiency: Working with WWF, Coca-Cola has improved water efficiency by 13 percent since 2004, well on its way toward reaching a 20 percent improvement goal by 2012. These results apply not only to The Coca-Cola Company, but also to over 300 independently owned and operated bottling companies.

Reducing climate impacts: The partnership has developed two system-wide targets to reduce climate-related emissions: stabilize emissions overall, and achieve a five percent reduction in developed countries. In 2009, emissions fell 7.7 percent in developed countries relative to 2004 levels. These results apply not only to The Coca-Cola Company, but also to over 300 independently owned and operated bottling companies.

Promoting sustainable agriculture: The partnership promotes sustainable agriculture in key areas of The Coca-Cola Company’s supply chain, focusing on sugarcane, oranges and corn – three primary ingredients used in the company’s beverages. In an Australian sugarcane pilot project, one of several pilot projects on which the partners collaborate, farmers have cumulatively improved the quality of 6.3 billion gallons of water runoff by eliminating significant amounts of agricultural sediments, chemicals and pollutants.  This is helping to improve water quality in the surrounding freshwater and marine ecosystems, including the Great Barrier Reef.

For more information, download our Annual Review:
    • 2010
    • 2009