Coca-Cola’s confusing emissions claims draw fire

When the Coca-Cola Company announced new emissions targets earlier this month, it described the change as an “evolution.” Media outlets, however, chose different descriptors, including “lowers ambition” and “backtracking.” But the real story for Coca-Cola or any company talking emissions is hampered by the confusing and inconsistent data that’s publicly available.

The media certainly had reason to suspect a scaling back of ambition. The company’s previous target, validated by the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi), called for a 25 percent cut to Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions by 2030, with 2015 as the baseline. The revised target pushes the deadline to 2035. Coca-Cola’s statement also noted that emissions generated by several subsidiaries, including Costa Coffee, which operates close to 4,000 stores globally, would not be included in the target. The company declined to quantify the emissions generated by these subsidiaries.

However, the company also made a potentially important shift in the opposite direction. Its original target was consistent with a 2.0 degree Celsius increase in global temperatures. Many early target-setters chose this pathway, but the SBTi and others have since emphasized the need for companies to reduce emissions in line with a 1.5-degree future, which requires more significant cuts.

Coca-Cola’s new target will be consistent with this pathway, the statement said. A spokesperson for the SBTi said that many factors determine whether a company’s target is validated by the organization, but a 1.5-degree pathway requires a minimum 42 percent reduction on 2020 emissions by 2030 — potentially an increase on Coca-Cola’s previous goal.

New and improved — and still confusing

How does this pencil out? An answer would be available if Coca-Cola provided an updated percentage reduction from a 2015 baseline. But the company’s statement instead notes a shift to a different baseline — 2019 — and omits mention of a percentage reduction. The spokesperson declined to comment on why the number was omitted, beyond saying that the change in baseline “reflects more recent and improved data.”

Assessing a company’s ambition based on an ESG report is often challenging, said Alison Taylor, a sustainability researcher at New York University. “If we start to introduce shifting baselines that all becomes much harder,” she added.

Data from Coca-Cola’s annual reports and its disclosures to Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) could shed light on this. But in practice, the numbers raise as many questions as answers. The data in the two sources is reported in slightly different ways, for example. The company has also changed the way it calculated its original 2015 baseline and how it accounts for emissions from different parts of the network of companies it works with. 

The numbers do, however, provide reasons why Coca-Cola might want to delay. The company’s original 25 percent reduction, 2.0 C goal was set in 2019 with a 2030 deadline. The company’s most recent sustainability reports show emissions at 6 percent below 2015 levels in 2022 and at 8 percent below last year, suggesting it is not on track to hit its original target. An analysis of Coca-Cola’s recent emissions by MSCI, a provider of financial data, shows the company aligned with a 2.3 C target.

It’s worth noting that this reduction has been achieved during a period of sales growth; the volume of drinks sold by Coca-Cola has increased by around 10 percent since 2015. Coca-Cola would also certainly not be alone if it were to rethink its sustainability goals: Microsoft, Walmart and Procter & Gamble were among more than 200 companies that missed a January deadline to submit their targets for validation by the SBTi.

Going backward on plastics

One other component of Coca-Cola’s recent announcement — an update on its commitment to cutting back on plastics — was more obviously news of backtracking. The company’s original goal of using 50 percent recycled content by 2030 was downgraded to 35-40 percent by 2035, and a target for selling 25 percent of beverages in refillable or returnable packaging by the same date has been eliminated altogether. 

“Coca-Cola’s recent announcement asserting the global beverage giant is ‘evolving’ its voluntary environmental goals makes it sound like the company is progressing its sustainability ambitions rather than weakening and scaling them back,” said Mica Crouse, a sustainability communications consultant and founder of Big Mountain Impact, a consultancy based in Asheville, North Carolina. “When you look at what Coca-Cola is actually doing, it’s largely shifting away from promises to use less single-use plastic and instead increasing the use of recycled content.”

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