Coke Replaces All the Water It Uses

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 13, 4:07AM EST · Published Aug 30, 9:05AM EDT

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Coke Replaces All the Water It Uses — © Thinkstock

As fresh water comes in ever smaller and smaller supply, Coca-Cola Co. (NYSE: KO) has hit a milestone. It replaces all the water its uses.

The company announced:

What began as an aspirational goal nine years ago is now a global industry milestone. Coca-Cola today announced that it is the first Fortune 500 company to replenish the equivalent amount of water used in its global sales volume and production back to nature and communities.

In 2007, Coca-Cola committed to replenishing every liter of water used in its global sales volume and production by the end of 2020. Today’s announcement, made at the start of World Water Week, means the company and its bottling partners have achieved this aggressive target five years ahead of schedule.

According to a global water use assessment validated by LimnoTech and Deloitte, and conducted in association with The Nature Conservancy, the Coca-Cola system returned an estimated 191.9 billion liters of water to nature and communities in 2015 – the equivalent of 115 percent of the water used in Coca-Cola’s finished beverages last year – through community water projects in 71 countries.

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According to a recent article in the Guardian:

Water is the driving force of all nature, Leonardo da Vinci claimed. Unfortunately for our planet, supplies are now running dry – at an alarming rate. The world’s population continues to soar but that rise in numbers has not been matched by an accompanying increase in supplies of fresh water.

The consequences are proving to be profound. Across the globe, reports reveal huge areas in crisis today as reservoirs and aquifers dry up. More than a billion individuals – one in seven people on the planet – now lack access to safe drinking water.

Maybe da Vinci and Coke dreamed up the water replacement plan together.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.