Coke brings fizz to water-saving drive
Firm to help fund roadshows to deliver message and provide gig rig for events
SOFT-DRINK giant Coca-Cola Beverages SA (CCBSA) has joined forces with the Department of Water and Sanitation and Unilever to support efforts to reduce water consumption in the country through nationwide road shows to help drive the message home.
CCBSA is helping to fund industrial theatre performances and providing its “gig rig” mobile stage trucks, refreshments, umbrellas and other material to support the roadshow which begins in Joburg tomorrow. The roadshow will then proceed to Durban, Port Elizabeth and Cape Town and will be reinforced by a TV campaign to encourage water saving.
Unilever aims to deliver almost half-amillion litres of relief water to Cape Town for an event to mark Water Week on March 22, of which CCBSA will contribute half.
The water will be handed over to the authorities managing distribution of relief water to communities in need and CCBSA will also be supporting their bottler partner in the Western Cape, Coca-Cola Peninsula Beverages, with contingency plans to deliver water to the city in the event of Day Zero.
The company said it was committed to partnering with the government on projects that drove a reduction in water use and reduced water leaks. The company had also invested to effect significant water savings in its operations.
From 2010, it reduced the volume of the water used to produce each litre of soft drink 30%, from 2.13 litres in 2010 to 1.65 litres last year, representing a total saving of 726 million litres, or 290 Olympic-sized swimming pools, enough water to provide 250 litres of water a day for 8 000 households for a year.
This year, CCBSA has set itself a target of 1.56 litres of water per litre of soft drink produced and has also set goals to be the most efficient industrial water user, help enable access to clean drinking water in under-served communities and to work with others to mobilise local and national communities.
The firm was also surveying water-related plant practices to discover opportunities for innovation and increasing the reuse of water through improved technology and further training.
“Risk mitigation for water is included in our capital expenditure. In everything we do, we aim to reduce, reuse, recycle and replenish water. CCBSA’s investments in advanced technology have already helped it to save substantial quantities of water in the manufacture of its products, and it will continue to explore new ways to drive down water use,” the company said.
Meanwhile, it responded to a request to comment on this question from the Water Crisis Coalition (WCC): “How is Coca-Cola in Cape Town able to use over a million litres of water every day while poor households are having their water cut off ?”
Priscilla Urquhart, Coca-Cola Peninsula Beverages public affairs and communications manager, said regarding the WCC’s latest call to halt production for three months: “It is unfortunate that the WCC chooses to portray our business in this way.
“In our meeting with the WCC last Monday, they had asked to shut down our manufacturing facility for five months. We explained why this would not work. We employ about 1 350 people, who support families. We supply and distribute to more than 18 000 outlets in the formal and greater Cape Town communities, most of whom rely on our products for their income … Coca-Cola Peninsula Beverages utilises 0.3% of the 4% of industry water allocated to businesses off the municipal grid. It is our intention that, as a responsible corporate citizen, we will move off the municipal water grid once the licence is granted for borehole use,” said Urquhart.