Our Approach

We are clear and ambitious about what we want to achieve on our sustainability journey. Our Mission 2025 commitments on climate, packaging, water, ingredients, nutrition, people and communities set measurable targets. 

We aim to achieve net zero emissions by 2040 and have a net positive impact on biodiversity in critical areas of our supply chain by 2040.  

Sustainability is integrated across every aspect of our business. It is fundamental to our business strategy, which aims to create and share value with all of our stakeholders. This defines how we run our business, carry out our activities and develop our relationships.

The Company has used ESG metrics for either short-term or long-term incentives for a number of years, reflecting our approach to responsible, long-term management and the importance of ensuring our licence to operate. The CEO’s individual performance is measured in key strategic areas, including ESG benchmarks, and these are taken into account for the Management incentive Plan (MIP). The CO₂ emissions target in the Performance Share Plan (PSP) implicitly captures reduction in plastics, which was a key driver of its selection as a metric. These selected metrics directly align with and incentivise delivery of the Company’s ESG objectives, particularly our ambitious goal to achieve net zero emissions across our entire value chain by 2040. Other sustainability areas such as calories reduction, water use reduction, ingredients sourcing, are also contributing to the targets of emissions reduction and thus covered by the incentivisation plans above. Relevant action plans and performance for each of our sustainability commitments (across six areas of Mission 2025 and net zero such as climate, water, packaging, sustainable sourcing, nutrition, people & communities) are regularly reviewed by the KPI owners and working teams.

In 2023 we were ranked – for the seventh time – as the world’s most sustainable beverage company by the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices¹. Our score positions us in the top 1% of 9,400 companies across 62 industries. We also scored a double-A ranking for our commitment to transparency on climate and water from CDP and we are on CDP’s 2023 Supplier Engagement Leaderboard. We have the highest scores and rankings in 10 of the most-recognised ESG ratings.  

These achievements are the result of our clear vision and targets in sustainability, bold and entrepreneurial mindset, and continuing investment in technology and innovation. Strong collaboration with our suppliers and partners and highly skilled and committed colleagues working across our markets have also been crucial to this success. We know we still have work to do and remain committed to being part of the solution to global sustainability challenges. 

Sustainability is integrated across every aspect of our business. It is fundamental to our business strategy, which aims to create and share value with all of our stakeholders. This defines how we run our business, carry out our activities and develop our relationships. 

• A significant focus for us is promoting plastic circularity, and our primary packaging is already 100% recyclable. We are making strong progress towards achieving our other Mission 2025 commitments on packaging of collecting at least 75% of the primary packaging we place in the market and using, on average, 35% recycled PET in our bottles².
• In 2023, 100% of our electricity in the EU and Switzerland came from renewable and clean sources.
  
• On water stewardship, we now have community projects in 12 water risk areas where we operate – up from eight last year.
  
• We announced a new charitable foundation, with an initial donation of €10 million, dedicated to supporting local communities.
  
• We became a partner in the $137.7 million Greycroft Coca-Cola System Sustainability Fund with seven other bottlers and The Coca-Cola Company.

We strongly believe sustainability is a true growth driver for us and our partners. We continue to integrate sustainability in our business model and support value creation for the business:

• In Austria, we invested €12 million in a returnable glass bottling line for both one litre and our new 400ml resealable bottles³. We also introduced an industry-leading, innovative solution to replace plastic shrink film with 100%-recyclable paper on 1.5 litre multi-packs. These innovations help us improve packaging circularity and win in the marketplace as they meet our consumers’ demand for glass packaging and no-plastic packaging.
  
• We have invested more than €50 million in three in-house rPET production units. This supported our shift to 100% rPET portfolio in selected markets. In-house rPET production helps us reduce costs compared with buying from third-party suppliers and eliminates extra transport costs.
  
• We exceeded our goal of having 50% energy efficient coolers in the market (excluding Egypt, which we acquired in 2022), with a total of 55% by December 2023 – two years ahead of target. These coolers consume less energy, so they generate less emissions, and mean lower energy costs for our customers. 

This year, we integrated Egypt into our sustainability strategy – after we acquired the Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Egypt in 2022 – and developed specific plans for the market. As we continue to develop our 2030 aspirations, we will integrate our Egyptian operations in our future commitments.

We know that there is a lot to be done, but we are encouraged by the progress we have made in 2023 and remain committed to accelerating our efforts to build a more sustainable future.

Coca-Cola HBC Sustainability Snapshots

Behind every sustainability fact and figure are many people working every day to deliver our Mission 2025 commitments.

In our series Sustainability Snapshots, we showcase some of the people who dedicate their time to driving sustainability through our business.

Footnotes: 

1. DJSI as at 8 December 2023

2. Excluding Egypt

3.  Co-funded by the European Union, NextGenerationEU.