Corporate Social Responsibility

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is ideally a means for businesses to make corporate decisions with the public interest in mind. CSR campaigns allow companies to maintain ethical standards by accepting responsibility for their actions and their impact on communities, employees, and the environment. The Coca-Cola Company uses the Live Positively campaign as a way to make a positive difference. According to their website, Live Positively is a “commitment to make a positive difference in the world by redesigning the way we work and live so sustainability is part of everything we do” (www.thecoca-colacompany.com).

As part of their social responsibility efforts, Coca-Cola sponsors programs and charities to help communities around the world with things like education, climate protection, and recycling. Operations Grass Roots is a project where each bottling facility is required to get involved with their local civic organizations, business leaders and politicians. Programs working specifically with education include My Coke Rewards which helps purchase playground equipment and art supplies for schools and Teach for America which recruits teachers for low-income schools. Each year the company also provides more than 1,400 college students with scholarships to two and four year universities.

In terms of climate protection, the company says their goal is to “to grow the business, not the carbon in our manufacturing operations” (www.thecoca-colacompany.com). They strive to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by improving the efficiency of coolers and vending machines and improve productivity in bottling plants to reduce manufacturing emissions. They also use fuel-efficient transportation for delivery. By the end of 2009, more than 300 diesel-electric hybrids trucks had been created. Currently, Coca-Cola has over 200,000 vehicles used to deliver their products around the world, and they are working to optimize delivery routes and create lightweight packing to cut down on pollution. The company estimates a 40 to 50 percent improvement in energy efficiency by the end of 2010 and a five percent reduction in carbon emissions in developed countries by 2015 (livepositively.com).

In terms of recycling, the company offers things like RecycleBank, where participants earn redeemable RecycleBank Points for rewards from Coca-Cola and hundreds of other participating businesses based on the weight of their recyclables. The Coca-Cola/NRC Recycling Bin Grant Program donates recycling bins to kick-start recycling programs for local organizations. The company is also working with Spain, the Czech Republic, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria and Japan to establish community organizations that promote recycling and litter reduction.

Since 1.3 billion people around the world lack access to safe drinking water and an estimated one-third of the population is expected to face water shortages by 2025, Coca-Cola is committed to protect and preserve water resources (Laitinen). The company plans to preserve resources by using water more efficiently and ensuring that every gallon of water used will make a gallon of product. Their goal is to improve water efficiency by 20 percent by 2012 (www.thecoca-colacompany.com). The company has begun 120 community water projects in over 50 countries “working on a wide range of local initiatives, such as watershed protection, expanding community drinking water access, rain water harvesting, reforestation and agricultural water use efficiency” (livepositively.com).

Coca-Cola got its start in the late 1800’s as a patent medicine and has evolved into one of the world’s most popular and well known beverages; it is sold in over 200 countries. Their marketing and PR tactics have created a brand known worldwide, and the company is constantly recognized for its achievements and initiatives. In March of this year, the company was named one of Fortune’s most admired companies. In February, the company joined world efforts to help Haiti in the aftermath of natural disaster, just after making Newsweek’s “Green Rankings.” There is no doubt that this organization has in many ways made positive strides toward a better tomorrow for our world, but like many other corporations, there have also been harmful occurrences, though positive CSR publicity often keep them out of the spotlight.

The idea of CSR is to inspire community involvement and improvement, yet some people view CSR and even corporations as a whole in a negative light. Milton Friedman and others have argued that a corporation's purpose is to maximize returns to its shareholders not society as a whole, and that only people, not organizations can have social responsibilities (Friedman). Even though Coke seems to have numerous efforts towards making the world a better place, several flaws in their CSR programs have occurred. In response to eight employees of Coke bottlers in Colombia being killed in 2006 and others threatened and jailed on terrorism charges, Ray Rogers at Rutgers University launched Killercoke.com and urged universities nationwide to stop selling the product on their campuses. He claimed "The reality is that the world of Coca-Cola is a world of lies, deceptions, corruption, gross human rights and environmental abuses," while a coke spokesperson claimed he "has no facts to support his claims" (Businessweek.com). In March of 2010, Coca-Cola’s Indian subsidiary was fined $47 million for damage to the water and soil in a southern Indian village which occurred when the company discharged a sludge that contained toxic chemicals like cadmium and lead (nytimes.com).

The important thing that we as consumers and public relations professionals need to realize is that we must dig deeper into what’s really going on in a company and not just trust the positive information displayed on the company website. Coca-Cola operates in more than 200 countries, so it is essential to look not only at the positive things it does within our specific community, but also find out about negative aspects elsewhere and make sure our society knows about them in order to make educated purchasing decisions. The company prides itself on helping to “create sustainable communities by finding solutions to local needs, building capabilities and improving quality of life through programs, partners and people;” which is certainly an admirable goal, but it is society’s job to hold them accountable (www.thecoca-colacompany.com).