Coca-Cola India's Water Stewardship Strategy

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COCA-COLA’S INDIA WATER STRATEGY
Coca-Cola is the global leader in beverage manufacturing. It is worth $200 billion with yearly sales of about $40 billion from its subsidiaries in over 200 nations (Bywater, 2015, 98). The company established a subsidiary in India in 1993. By 2008, it had established 24 and 25 bottling plants of its own as well as franchisees. It sells brands like Sprite, Fanta and Coke alongside powdered concentrates, energy drinks, Kinley mineral water and Thums Up. Being a large beverage company, it impacts the environment in numerous ways via air conditioning equipment, vending machines, green gas emission, effluent discharge, higher levels of energy use, discharge of wastewater and excess levels of water use among others. Owing to these impacts, the company has attracted criticism from many quarters. Protests rose against Coca-Cola’s Indian subsidiaries for impacting the environment. The increasing concerns prompted the company to increase its corporate social responsibility initiatives to act as a responsible firm and lower its environmental impact. Among the initiatives was the water strategy. This essay presents Coca-Cola India’s water strategy and details how the management’s and employees’ are acting to contribute to the community and the society at large.
Like numerous companies, Coca-Cola integrated CSR to safeguard its reputation and the revenue of its brand and goods. To do this, the company has partnered with environmental groups, completed sustainability reports and integrated international labor standards. The corporation goes on expanding its CSR agenda to solve the social opposition it experiences when big anti-Coke movements rise. For instance, protests started in India in 2002 and spread across the globe and motivated other movements in Europe and the US. The first protests against Coca-Cola India’s subsidiaries began when Kerala’s villages confirmed that the firm depleted as well as polluted its land and ground water resources (Aiyer, 2007, 644). The protesters claimed that their environmental issues started after Coca-Cola established its plant in the area. They presented that the company had destroyed their livelihoods and privatized the community’s ground water (Bywater, 2015, 98). Other protests followed around bottling plants in Sivaganga, Bihar, Ballia, Rajasthan, Kaladera, Uttar Pradesh and Mehndiganj. This made the company realize that it had to continue incorporating CSR to manage its corporate legitimacy.
Owing to these protests, Coca-Cola Company started to look for ways to get access to enough amounts of water to satisfy the current as well as the future requirements in an environmentally, economically and socially accountable manner in the middle of an upcoming world water problem with the risks that exceed the environment, industry as well as communities. Via a business case that focuses on productivity, risk management and sustainability and via integration of a strategic background that relies on water mass balance at the business level, the company started initiatives that backed the replenishment of sustainable water balances at the watershed and community levels whereas creating business value.
Being a large beverage company in India, Coca-Cola acknowledged that it was necessary that CSR be incorporated into its business model following these protests. The company was aware of its economic, social and environmental impact caused by its business operations. The company integrated different initiatives to enhance life for all.
Coca-Cola emphasized on the sustainability of its functions especially on its water consumption. It launched the CSR water stewardship program restore its social license to function following the anti-coke protests (Bywater, 2015, 101). The eco-efficiency strategy has enabled the company to reduce its water usage from 2.65 liters of water 2.16 liters of water for a liter of coke. Reducing water consumption specifically in non-essential beverage industries would solve the issue of water scarcity. This reduction therefore enhances its bottom line and strains less the water resources.
However, this water strategy faces some challenges. The corporation may be lowering the water required to make a single product but its water consumption continue to increase as the number of beverages produced increases. As a result, the stress on enhancing water efficiency masks the growing rate of the general water consumption. For instance, water consumption increased from 2004’s 278 billion liters to 2012’s 293.3 billion liters (Bywater, 205, 102). The company shall go on exhausting more water resources as it grows its operations. By 2020, the firm aims to have invested about $5 billion by 2020 to increase its Indian operations. This makes it unclear how the company shall be able to realize environmental sustainability. This is because the expansion of business is at odds with the sustainability objectives.
The expansion will not be a win-win situation for firms and communities. The bottling plants shall continue to consume great water amounts and the water resources shall continue to be strained in areas like Kaladera and Mehndiganj (Bywater, 205, 102). Here, CSR acts like a diversion as this initiative focuses on the firm’s efforts of reducing water consumption and efficiency. This diverts public attention from the firm’s general growing water consumpti...