Does Coca‑Cola create a lot of pollution while transporting their drinks?

One thing that surprises people about Coca‑Cola is the local nature of our business. We have a global brand but our production and distribution is coordinated in thousands of local communities around the world.

When it comes to transportation, our fleet of vehicles is actually the smallest contributor to our carbon footprint. We own a small fleet of distribution vehicles, which are mainly used for smaller deliveries to local shops and newsagents. We also use haulage companies such as Eddie Stobart Ltd to transport bulk deliveries to supermarkets and other large customers. These deliveries account for over 19 million road miles every year, equating to roughly 0.5% of all HGV food miles undertaken in the UK.

We've been working to reduce emissions from both our own fleet and our industry partners. We're reducing the carbon footprint of our own vehicles through better journey planning and by using smaller vehicles for smaller loads. We're also reducing harmful exhaust emissions as we now buy vehicles which meet Enhanced Environmentally-friendly Vehicle (EEV) standards. And we are trialing the use of vehicles running on biomethane within our distribution fleet, which are the first logistics HGV of their kind in Great Britain. Biomethane is a renewable transport fuel produced from the natural breakdown of organic matter that either takes place in landfills or anaerobic digestion plants. The fuel is close to carbon neutral, and when used in vehicles it has very low exhaust emissions with regards local air quality and is considerably quieter than conventional diesel vehicles.

During 2007 and 2008, these green distribution initiatives have saved just under 1.5 million road miles (this is approximately 2,200 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year - equivalent to the carbon emissions of 167 households). See the carbon footprint of our popular drinks.