Coca-Cola and the Olympic Games

The Coca-Cola Company is proud to be the longest continuous corporate sponsor of the Olympic Movement. This year, we have an exciting opportunity to contribute to the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games by helping raise global awareness about the importance of environmental stewardship while seeking to inspire action in communities across Canada.

Coca-Cola’s Olympic Sustainability Plan

Coca-Cola is using the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games as a forum to showcase its Olympic Games Sustainability Plan and its ongoing environmental commitment to inspire Canadian individuals to be more environmentally-friendly.  Coca-Cola will profile its global environmental best practices in an effort to demonstrate how companies can take progressive steps to reduce their environmental footprint.

After the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games, Coca-Cola will review the outcomes and lessons learned from the sustainability program to improve its overall efforts to develop and meet its long-term sustainability commitments.

Coca-Cola’s holistic environmental action plan was created through consultation with WWF-Canada and the David Suzuki Foundation.

Olympic Environmental Targets:

1. Zero waste:  Through the use of sustainable packaging and ensuring 100 per cent collection of all PET containers used throughout the Olympic and Paralympic Villages in Vancouver and Whistler and the Olympic venues, 95 per cent of all waste will be diverted from landfills.
   
   
2. Carbon neutral: Introducing leading edge technologies to reduce carbon emissions and once all measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are achieved, purchasing Gold Standard carbon offsets (as recommended by WWF-Canada and the David Suzuki Foundation) to offset remaining emissions from the carbon footprint of Coca-Cola’s 2010 Olympic Games operations and its Olympic Torch Relay (OTR) route activation while achieving our goal of reducing our Olympic carbon emissions by 100 per cent. The emissions that will be offset include those from Games-related vehicles, air travel, and energy used by our temporary warehouse and venue beverage coolers.

Detailed Highlights of our Olympic Games Sustainability Plan:

Rolling out extensive carbon reduction initiatives

• 100 per cent of the Coca-Cola coolers and vending machines for the Games will almost eliminate DIRECT greenhouse gas emissions and reduce indirect emissions (electricity usage) through the use of a CO₂ cassette refrigeration unit replacing the current technology that uses hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) refrigerant. The Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games will be the first time that this new refrigerant technology will be used in North America. This equipment will also use a Coca-Cola system proprietary technology called Energy Management System (EMS 55) that improves energy-efficiency by up to 35 per cent through ‘smart’ temperature control. This “smart” technology develops a “user profile” for the piece of equipment that determines when and how often the cooling compressor needs to operate to ensure a quality beverage of 4 degrees Celsius is dispensed.
  
  
• Calculated based on an expected ten-year life span of the units, the approximately 1,400 climate-friendly refrigeration units to be placed by Coca-Cola in the venues reduce greenhouse gas emissions by approximately 5,600 metric tons. To put this number in perspective, it is comparable to taking about 29,000 cars off the road for two weeks during the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games or about 1,200 cars off the road for an entire year.
  
  
• Using hybrid or high-efficiency delivery vehicles during the Games and OTR. Coca-Cola Bottling Company has been the leader in innovation when it comes to heavy-duty hybrid technology and single axle delivery vehicles for use in major urban centers.
  
  
• Once all measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are achieved, purchasing Gold Standard carbon offsets (as recommended by WWF-Canada and the David Suzuki Foundation) to offset remaining emissions from the carbon footprint of Coca-Cola’s 2010 Olympic Games operations and its activation of Torch Relay (OTR). The emissions that will be offset include those from Games-related vehicles, air travel, and energy used by our temporary warehouse and venue beverage coolers. Product related emissions are not being offset. Product related reduction efforts are listed below as part of our long-term strategy.

Providing RPET apparel

• All of Coca-Cola’s associates supporting the Olympic Winter Games project including: Olympic Torch Relay, Venue Operations and Hospitality will be wearing clothing made out of recycled plastic (PET) bottles where feasible, with the exception of footwear.

Diverting waste from landfills

• Through the use of sustainable packaging and ensuring 100 per cent collection of all PET containers used throughout the Olympic and Paralympic Villages in Vancouver and Whistler and the Olympic venues, Coca-Cola will achieve their goal of diverting 95 per cent of all waste from landfill. Over 600 Coca-Cola recycling barrels will be placed throughout the venues to support the collection of PET bottles. The barrels are an environmental story in themselves as they are reused Coca-Cola concentrate barrels provided from regular business activities.
  
  
• Coca-Cola will be producing merchandising materials to be used in concessions within the Olympic venues that are produced from post consumer recycled plastic. All of these items will be redeployed into the general market after the Games.