Meeting Our Goal for Water Efficiency
Goal:
By 2012, improve water efficiency in manufacturing by 20 percent compared with a 2004 baseline.
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Progress:
By the end of 2011, we had reduced our water use ratio by 20 percent.
Greater efficiency in our water use does not mean making less product. To the contrary, we intend to reduce our water use ratio—the amount of water we use per liter of product produced—while growing our business. Our goal, set in 2008, was to improve water efficiency systemwide by 20 percent by 2012, compared with a 2004 baseline. Despite an expanding product portfolio and increased production levels, we have achieved that goal. In 2011, we used 293.3 billion liters of water to make 135 billion liters of product, giving us a water use ratio of 2.16 liters per liter of product.
We are not stopping there. We are developing a new goal for further improving our water efficiency between now and 2020.
Looking across our system, our data show that the highest water use ratios are often in developing markets, where water risks may be higher. One main reason: In developing markets, refillable glass bottles make up a large percentage of our unit case volume, and cleaning returned bottles demands more water. Even in those markets, our bottling plants typically draw a small percentage of water from local water sources, and each plant’s source water protection plan helps mitigate any threats to local water supplies.