Coca-Cola Faces Backlash After Scaling Back Packaging PlansCoca-Cola Faces Backlash After Scaling Back Packaging Plans

It’s one thing when someone breaks a promise, but there are broader consequences when the perpetrator is a brand juggernaut — and even more so if the promise was about sustainability.

Enter Coca-Cola, which released updated voluntary environmental goals in the categories of packaging, water, climate, and agriculture. The feedback from environmentalists and circularity experts was swift and severe.

Their outcry is based on both the “what” and the “when” of the new goals. The company pared down its previous plans for boosting package recycling, using recycled content and refillable packaging, and reducing use of virgin plastic. In addition, the updated goals extend all Coca-Cola’s sustainability goals to 2035.

The virgin plastic goal has been a lightning rod for criticism, with observers noting the disappearance of Coca-Cola’s previous goal of reducing its use of virgin plastic by 3.3 million tons/3 million metric tons by 2025.

One critic identifies this reset of the brand's eco-goals as a reoccurring theme for decades.

Recycled, refillable, and recyclable.

Critics are also dismayed by Coca-Cola’s new recycled-content goals. As recently as 2023, the company said it intended to use at least 50% recycled content in its packaging by 2030. Its new goal is to use 35% to 40% recycled material in its primary packaging (across plastic, glass, and aluminum) and increase recycled plastic use to 30% to 35% by 2035.

For context, nearly half of the company’s primary packaging is plastic. In 2023, the breakout included 47.7% plastic (primarily polyethylene terephthalate (PET)) bottles, 26% aluminum and steel bottles and cans, 8.8% refillable glass bottles, and 1.6% nonrefillable glass bottles.

The lack of a quantifiable goal for refillable packaging has also drawn fire. Coca-Cola previously said it intended to have at least 25% of its beverages globally in refillable or returnable glass or plastic bottles or in fountain dispensers with reusable packaging by 2030.

The new goal for refillable packaging is fuzzier. The company says it plans to keep investing in refillable packaging in markets where infrastructure already exists but hasn’t cited quantifiable targets.

Coca-Cola’s recycling/collection approach has changed, as well. In its 2021 World Without Waste Report, the company’s collection goal was to “collect and recycle a bottle or can for each one we sell by 2030.” Now the company is aiming for a 70% to 75% collection rate for the bottles and cans it puts into the market each year.

In terms of packaging recyclability, Coca-Cola’s previous goal was to make 100% of its packaging recyclable globally by 2025. With the new year dawning, the clock is running out on that one. However, the company says more than 95% of its primary packaging is designed to be recycled, and that it’s working to make the remainder recyclable.

Consumers fire back.

Backlash from environmentalists within the ranks of activists, professionals, and consumers materialized immediately after Coca-Cola announced its updated sustainable packaging goals.

The day after Coca-Cola’s announcement, #BreakFreeFromPlastic (BFFP) issued a press release with a blistering statement from BFFP global coordinator Von Hernandez: “Coke's latest move is a masterclass in greenwashing, ditching previously announced reuse targets, and choosing to flood the planet with more plastic they can't even collect and recycle effectively. This only reinforces the company’s reputation as the World’s Top Plastic polluter.”

Ocean-conservation group Oceana, in its own press release, delivered a similar reaction. “Coca-Cola’s decision to double down on single-use plastic — by killing its goals to reduce virgin plastic and to increase reusable packaging — is short-sighted, irresponsible, and worthy of widespread condemnation by its customers, its employees, its investors, and governments worried about the impact of plastics on our oceans and health,” said Matt Littlejohn, Oceana senior vice president of strategic initiatives.

The anger, angst, and disappointment extended to social media, with X and LinkedIn users repeating Hernandez’s greenwashing barb.

On LinkedIn, circular economy consultant Vojtech Vosecky zeroed in on Coca-Cola’s lost 25% refillable/returnable packaging goal and its reduced goal for recycled content, writing: “All this while we dig for more oil to make plastic, and our oceans have never been more polluted … Don't be fooled by the shiny marketing machine.”

Commenting on Vosecky’s post, chemical engineer Anna Bukowski wrote: “This rollback is definitely more than disappointing. Especially when having a look [at] the impact Coca-Cola and their plastic bottles have. We don’t need another shiny marketing campaign to fight against global plastic pollution but honest transparency and clear action.”