What is Coca‑Cola’s position on the environmental issues associated with transporting PlantBottle™ materials from Brazil to Great Britain?

To make our PlantBottle™ packaging, we take responsibly sourced Brazilian sugarcane and convert its natural sugars into bio-monoethylene glycol or b-MEG, from which we make one of the key ingredients used for making PET plastic in a factory in India. The resulting ingredients for making PlantBottle™ plastic are then sent to a factory based in Lincolnshire, Great Britain where they are combined and made into PET pellets, which are transformed into 'pre-forms' for bottles.

These 'pre-forms' are then sent to our different Coca‑Cola factories around Great Britain where they are blown into bottles for filling. After teaming up with leading academic and NGO partners (such as WWF and Bonsucro), we carefully chose Brazilian sugarcane to make our PlantBottle™ plastic.

Interestingly, the biggest carbon cost of our PlantBottle™ packaging isn’t the transportation associated with the global supply chain, but the raw ingredients, so by closing the loop and recycling, we can use the energy that went into making the bottles again and again.

The global supply chain for PlantBottle™ material is also being continually refined and improved over the years, and we’re investing in more factories to produce our packaging ingredients in more places around the world. However, as the world starts to increase its demand for biofuels, we understand it won’t be sustainable to depend on a single source and region for our plant-based materials. Therefore, we’re working with our partners to create PlantBottle™ packaging from plant waste such as stems, peels, stalks and bark, that could be sourced from almost anywhere in the world.

Most importantly, wee are encouraging you, our consumers, to play a part in offsetting the carbon emissions of our packaging by recycling your empty bottles every time. Take a look at our Recyclometer tool, developed in association with the Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP); it's fun to use and helps to demonstrate the positive impact that everyday recycling can have.

We've also invested in a joint venture, state of the art recycling facility - Continuum Recycling in Lincolnshire - which will double this country's capacity for producing high quality recycled plastic, which we'll put right back into our bottles again.