Coca-Cola meets 2020 water goal in China

Coca-Cola China announced on Wednesday that it met its 2020 water replenishment goal－with an independent third-party verification－at the end of last year.

Through a wide range of innovative initiatives and joint partnerships, Coca-Cola China replenished 17.1 billion liters of clean water back to nature and Chinese communities in 2014.

China is one of the first seven markets to have met Coca-Cola's global water replenishment goal.

As the world's first company to establish a 100 percent water replenishment goal as part of its 2020 vision, Coca-Cola also announced on Wednesday that the company and its bottling partners are on track to meet that goal, on a global scale, by the end of this year.

Since 2004, Coca-Cola has been implementing its so-called "3R" water strategy: to reduce, recycle and replenish.

The Coca-Cola system has replenished about 153.6 billion liters of water back to nature and communities through 209 water resource management and protection projects in 64 countries.

Based on an independent third-party verification of Coca-Cola's global water replenishment projects, the results of which were published in a company report this year, the company is balancing an estimated 94 percent of the water used in its finished beverages based on 2014 sales volume.

Coca-Cola said it has propelled about 20 water resource management and protection projects in China.

These local projects are diverse, covering such fields as source water protection, sustainable agriculture, water loss and soil erosion control, flood utilization, wetland protection and recovery, water reclamation and promoting mini-wetland technologies in rural areas.

In all, Coca-Cola said it has implemented water stewardship programs in 10 major river basins in China, including the Yangtze, Yellow, Huaihe, Haihe, Pearl and Songhua rivers.