Members projects

In 2007 The Coca-Cola Company and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) confirmed a joint commitment to improve water efficiency, reduce carbon emissions, and help conserve seven of the world’s most important freshwater river basins. As a critical piece of this initiative, Coca-Cola affirmed the goal of advancing sustainable agriculture practices through promoting environmental stewardship and ensuring workplace rights.
Among agricultural products, sustainability in the sugarcane supply chain (farm, mill, and refining processes) is a key priority for The Coca-Cola Company and a focal point of the WWF/Coca-Cola partnership.

Coca-Cola and WWF have identified Bonsucro certification as a means of ensuring increased sustainability, and believe the newly formed standard will provide a globally recognized, third-party certification for sustainably produced sugarcane. Developed through an independent, multi-stakeholder initiative, the Bonsucro certification provides a mechanism for achieving sustainable production from sugarcane in respect of economic, social and environmental dimensions.
Coca-Cola, in partnership with WWF, has collaborated with key suppliers to initiate activities that assist sugar mills to understand and work towards certification to the Bonsucro standard. Initially, a pilot evaluation was conducted of five mills in Brazil to establish a baseline and identify alignment, gaps, and opportunities that could inform the mills' position with respect to what was then version 2 of a draft standard. This evaluation process also gave the partners an opportunity to provide constructive feedback to Bonsucro on the standard criteria, indicators, and audit process, contribiting as part of a multi-stakeholder process towards the creation of a finalized standard.

Following the initial evaluation, gaps and opportunities were identified and meetings with mills were conducted to discuss evaluations and develop specific action plans. ‘Gaps’ were ranked into three categories: 1) within mill’s control to address; 2) within mill control to address, but will necessitate some assistance; and 3) broad/industry wide issue requiring assistance from outside organizations to address. This provided a framework to articulate mutually agreed upon goals and objectives, identify specific actions to help meet these goals, and ultimately develop a work plan to obtain Bonsucro certification.

Beyond pilot evaluations, several complimentary initiatives have been completed. To address key industry issues, Coca-Cola’s environment and quality teams led a sugar supplier workshop for all Brazilian sugar suppliers in the Coke system. The workshop provided an opportunity to engage a broad audience of suppliers around Coca-Cola and WWF’s engagement and support of Bonsucro. In addition, the suppliers who participated in the pilot Bonsucro evaluations shared information on the impacts and opportunities for sustainably produced sugar. This feedback proved useful relative to the practical application of the Bonsucro standard. Another key initiative was the establishment of a working team to provide feedback to Bonsucro on certificiation auditing protocols and auditor training.

Finally, in 2011, in partnership with WWF and the Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association (UNICA), Coca-Cola conducted 3 workshops for sugar suppliers to help develop their capabilities to implement Bonsucro criteria and move towards certification.
With the Bonsucro standard now formalized and mills preparing for certification there is great potential for this initiative to scale. As Coca-Cola and WWF support mills to meet certification standards, sugarcane producers will continue to benefit, with global implications of aligning the industry towards responsible and sustainable environmental stewardship.