Does Coke's H2O Strategy Hold Water?

It takes 2.5 quarts of water to make one quart of Coca-Cola. Some estimates put the figure much higher. Yet the beverage giant is now being praised for its corporate water strategy which calls for the company to return as much water to nature as it uses in the communities in which it works by 2020.

Is this praise justified? Their dubious record of water management definitely makes one wonder ...

1. Coca-Cola was just recently assessed a charge of $48 million to compensate Plachimada in Palakkad district in India for damages to local water supplies. There, the company extracted 1.5 million liters (400,000 gallons) of water every day to turn it into Coke products. As a result, local water sources started to disappear, drying up all 260 bore wells for local residents, putting hundreds of farmers out of business, and contaminating the local ecosystem with a toxic sludge.
2. A film by German Gutierrez and Carmen Carcia called The Coca-Cola Case tells the story of how Coca-Cola allegedly tortured, murdered, and intimidated union activists in Colombia.
3. Coca-Cola has been accused of spraying its wastewater (from making its beverages) into the soil of Paw Paw, Michigan for 23 years where the groundwater is now significantly contaminated with heavy metals and carcinogens ...

Yes, Coke has some H2O amends to make ... and its never to late to make nice.

While is is good news that Coca-Cola is working toward some ambitious water management targets, let’s keep an eye out to see if their new leaf reality lives up to the hype.

Lets take a look at Coke's sordid past, as told by political activist and journalist Mark Thomas, from Great Britain's Channnel 4 ...

hmm ... very interesting. Yes, Coke, you certainly got your work cut out.

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