Coca-Cola Beverages Africa forges ahead with water stewardship with 2030 strategy

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The strategy focuses on sustainable, efficient water usage, improving local water challenges and partnering with others to improve watershed health and enhance community water resilience, with a focus on women and girls.

The strategy also has a strong emphasis on understanding the local context and needs of communities, which then informs the choice of appropriate interventions.

CCBA head of sustainability Diana Sibanda said: “We are identifying where we have most volumes at risk and the watersheds they source from and will develop specific water projects and mobilise partnerships that can address water challenges."

Sibanda said that the company will “maintain the global metric of 100% replenishment”, with a focus on improving watershed health in water-stressed areas that are critical to its business, communities and agricultural supply chain.

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Enabling safe water access to distressed communities

In Ethiopia, East Africa Bottling SC, an Ethiopian subsidiary of CCBA, partnered with the community and local government to invest 3 million Birr towards a safe water supply to the community of Bahirdar Zuria Woreda in the Mi’erab Gojam zone.

In South Africa, CCBA is fulfilling its promises to provide millions of litres of water to water-distressed communities around the country through expanding the network of groundwater harvesting and treatment facilities.

By the end of July, the company’s Coke Ville groundwater community water project had reached over 10,000 homes, just shy of its target of reaching 12,000 homes by the end of 2021. The company says that these projects have cumulatively produced 51 million litres of water to these homes, well on the way to its 2021 year-end target of 80 million litres.

“We continue to manage water resources through country projects that reduce water use in our operations, protect local water resources and provide safe, clean drinking water to communities in need,” Sibanda said.

CCBA says its water stewardship initiatives complement the work of The Coca-Cola Foundation (TCCF) and its Replenish Africa Initiative (Rain) which gave improved access to clean water to six million Africans in more than 4,000 communities across 41 countries, including Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique.