The Nature Conservancy. Protecting nature. Preserving life.™

Water is the most precious resource on our planet. At The Coca-Cola Company, water also is a key ingredient in every beverage made, and a critical resource in the supply chain. It is essential to company operations and the well-being of the communities and ecosystems where they operate. In the coming years, water supply and quality problems are expected to grow increasingly with a predicted two-thirds of the global population living in water stressed areas by 2025.

In 2007, Coca-Cola announced a sustainability effort to “replenish water equivalent to what is used in finished beverages” by the year 2020. Understanding their dependence and impact on water resources around the world, The Coca-Cola Company enlisted the expertise of The Nature Conservancy to help quantify the “replenishment credits” that the company could claim as a result of their investment in hundreds of local community watershed projects around the world.

The Nature Conservancy’s water experts worked with outside consultants to develop technical methods for quantifying replenishment credits, and applied those methods to more than 250 projects wholly or partly funded by The Coca Cola Company or its Foundation. The replenishment credits gained from these watershed projects are counted against the volume of water consumed in the company’s bottling plants. This analysis revealed that the company will have achieved 42% of its replenishment goal by the end of 2013.

For a full report on the Conservancy’s work with Coca-Cola on water conservation, read our corporate overview.