My choice of a company is Coca Cola Company which is a US multinational conglomerate that principally manufactures soft-drink refreshments and mineral water. The company is in the beverage industry as it produces a wide variety of popular soda brands including Fanta, Coca Cola, Sprite, Krest, and Stoney. My pathway is therefore food business in general and beverages to be more specific. I selected Coca Cola because it is the leading global soft-drink company. It is not just a dominant company in the US. It is also a leading beverage corporation in virtually every country on earth. As such, I was interested in knowing how environmentally sustainable such a giant multinational corporation is and what the company is doing for its surrounding communities in terms of corporate social responsibility (CSR).
I was thrilled to learn Coca Cola is working on a grand plan to recycle its immense plastic bottle waste which has over the years become a menace to not only local urban communities but also marine life. The discarded plastic bottle always somehow finds themselves in land-dumpsites around our cities and at sea. Sometimes they are not even bottles used and discarded in the United States. At times, the plastic waste off the coast is dumped in other countries and then washed ashore thereby ending up at the American coasts. Owing to the eye-sore that this waste plastic portends to the local communities, the company has been allocating billions of dollars to collect and recycle this waste. More importantly, the company is gradually reverting towards the use of the traditional, re-usable, and returnable glass bottles as opposed to plastic ones. Unfortunately, this transition will affect the company’s turnover and profits since plastic bottles are convenient and portable for customers. Some buyers will be dissuaded from buying and carrying glass bottles around which are not easily discarded. Thus, bottling mineral water in glass bottles will affect the company’s turnover in the short-term. However, in the long term, the sales volumes will return to normal or even surge as the company’s customers get used to the new non-plastic culture.
In conclusion, I can emphatically say that my conception of CSR has been challenged and dismantled. I always thought CSR was nothing more than a few company executives giving a few needy school-children scholarships or employing the local jobless folk. I never thought CSR also meant a company is accountable for the environmental degradation it has caused. Indeed, a firm living harmoniously with the surrounding environment is part of CSR too. As such, I’m happy and appreciative of this task for bringing to my attention that Coca Cola conserving the mother-nature which is choking on plastic is part and parcel of CSR.