Annual Forum

Stakeholder engagement is essential to growing our business and fulfilling our purpose. We need to engage and work in partnership with a wide range of stakeholders to make better business decisions and deliver on our commitments. Our key internal and external stakeholders include investors, employees, customers, consumers, suppliers, governments and regulators, The Coca‑Cola Company, and local communities. We also engage with other businesses through trade associations and universities.

Every year, we hold a Group Stakeholder Forum, organised together with The Coca‑Cola Company, to discuss our material topics with a group of experts.

Coca-Cola Forum 21

Due to current restrictions our annual stakeholder forum, held on 30th November, was again virtual in 2021. Closely linked with SDG 17, this year’s theme was Winning ESG Partnerships – When One Plus One Exceeds Two, with a special emphasis on sustainable packaging and climate action. We were happy to welcome and engage with over 60 Stakeholders and to listen to our speakers including Sue Allchurch - Chief of Outreach and Engagement, United Nations Global Compact, Simon Almond - Director Insights & Innovation, METRO AG, Caroline Archer - Vice President & Global Account Manager, Crown Packaging, Daniel Egger - Chief Commercial Officer at Climeworks and Attila Dávid Molnár - Founder and director of The PLASTIC Cup Initiative.  

We will now take the valuable feedback we gained from the discussions, evaluate it internally and turn it into measurable actions to support our sustainability journey. 

Coca-Cola Forum 19

 In 2019, our focus was on water stewardship, which was ranked as having the second highest impact amongst our material issues by our stakeholders in our 2018 materiality survey.

The 2019 Stakeholder Forum was held in Athens, Greece, in a market where two out of our three manufacturing facilities are facing some water risk. We welcomed 34 participants from 20 countries, including customers, industry associations, nongovernmental organisations, policy makers, investors and peer companies. Discussions covered three main areas: using water more efficiently in our operations and in the value chain; establishing water stewardship initiatives with local communities (stakeholder partnerships); and helping to educate local households on more efficient use of water.

Stakeholder recommendations from the 2019 Forum included:

• using ‘big data’ and new technologies to mitigate water risks;
• including water use reduction in standards for agricultural suppliers;
• demonstrating leadership through innovative technologies and scale locally;
• working with governments to influence local business;
• using the power of the brands to communicate broadly about water scarcity; 
• leveraging partnerships across markets to raise awareness and amplify achievements in water stewardship.

We are reviewing our stakeholders’ input and recommendations and will update on our actions later this year.