The Coca-Cola Company announced three goals accelerating its action on water during the UN 2023 Water Conference.

Chairman and CEO James Quincey participated in events during the week to share how the company is prioritizing water investments where they are needed most. The company’s holistic 2030 water strategy aims to achieve water security in the company’s operations, local watersheds and communities—where it operates, sources agricultural ingredients for beverages and touches people’s lives. 

“We recognize that water is essential to our business and to the communities where we operate, and are committed to being responsible stewards of this vital resource,” Quincey said. “We want to do this by improving water availability, quality, access and governance – and taking a more granular watershed-based approach. In short, we’re focusing on doing what matters most, where it matters most.”

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The company announced three goals related to the strategy’s key focus areas:

• Achieve 100% circular water use – or regenerative water use – across 175 facilities identified as “leadership locations” by 2030. 
• Work with partners to help improve the health of 60 watersheds identified as most critical for the company’s operations and agricultural supply chains by 2030. 
• Aim to return a cumulative total of 2 trillion liters of water to nature and communities globally, between 2021-2030. 

During the conference, Bea Perez, SVP and Chief Communications, Sustainability & Strategic Partnerships Officer, announced that the company is joining the Business Leaders’ Open Call to Accelerate Action on Water – an initiative of the UN Global Compact, the CEO Water Mandate and others. Furthering collective action, the company is joined in this effort by three of its bottling partners – Coca-Cola FEMSA, ARCA Continental and Coca-Cola Europacific Partners.

This initiative means the company will partner to build water resilience across operations and supply chains, and will work with partners to achieve collective positive water impact in at least 100 vulnerable water basins by 2030.

Additionally, The Coca-Cola Foundation recently awarded a $1.25 million grant to global nonprofit Imagine H20 to scale entrepreneurial solutions for water-stressed and climate- impacted communities.