Reflecting on its sustainability targets for 2025, Coca-Cola HBC says it already designs all its packaging for recycling, but may still have progress to make with recovering materials and implementing recycled plastic content.
Under its Mission 2025 commitments, Coca-Cola HBC plans to ensure 100% of its primary packaging is fully recyclable; recover the equivalent of 75% of its primary packaging for recycling or reuse; and source 35% of its total PET from recycled PET and/or PET from renewable material.
The company claims that 100% of its PET, glass, aluminium, and aseptic carton primary packaging has been recyclable by design since 2022 – exceeding its original 2025 target by three years.
It goes on to suggest that developing and emerging markets constitute almost 78% of its sales volume; and that, to support developing waste management infrastructure, it has assisted various collection projects – including those run by the Food & Beverage Recycling Alliance (FBRA), which reportedly tripled the previous year’s PET collection rate to almost 40,000 metric tonnes.
Globally, 56% of Coca-Cola HBC’s primary packaging was apparently collected for recycling or reuse in 2023.
Romania is also believed to have become the first market in the Coca-Cola HBC Group to combine a 100% rPET local bottle portfolio, an in-house rPET facility, and a deposit return scheme (DRS) – becoming one of six Coca-Cola HBC markets to implement the latter by the end of 2023.
Furthermore, 16% of the PET used by Coca-Cola HBC across all its markets in 2023 was said to be rPET, with the figure reaching 42% on its EU and Swiss markets. By the end of the year, all locally produced plastic bottles in Austria, Romania, Switzerland, Italy (excluding water), Northern Ireland, and the Republic of Ireland are said to have transitioned into 100% rPET. The company states its continued commitment to increasing the use of rPET in all its plastic bottles.
Having introduced three label-free variants of Valser-branded water packaging in Switzerland back in 2022, Coca-Cola HBC sought to differentiate its product with a ‘distinctive look’ while making the packaging easier to recycle.
Similarly, its use of KeelClip claims to have eliminated plastic packaging from can multipacks in 22 countries so far, in turn contributing to the reduction of Coca-Cola HBC’s plastic packaging footprint.
Greenhouse gas emissions are also a point of consideration, with 36% of Coca-Cola HBC’s value chain emissions attributed to packaging materials. Efforts to incorporate more recycled and biobased materials, lightweight existing packaging designs while providing more reusable options, and invest in local recycling programmes all fall under its NetZeroby40 emissions goal.
Its Pack Mix of the Future programme was launched across EU geographies in 2023; this initiative intends to continue profitable growth while lowering the company’s CO2 footprint via packaging.
Last December, The Coca-Cola Company announced that it would lower the ambition of its voluntary environmental goals. Its new targets include collecting 75% of the bottles and cans it brings to market and implementing 40% recyclate into its primary packaging before an extended deadline of 2035.
We heard from Calvin Lakhan, director of Circular Innovation Hub at the University of York’s Faculty of Environment and Urban Change, about this development. He suggested that, without the appropriate infrastructure to back them up, ambitious sustainability targets can end up harming a company’s reputation more than helping it, and that companies should collaborate with policymakers and industry leaders to fulfil their promises.
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