Coca‑Cola Europe Launches Live Positively Week

Coca‑Cola Europe today launches its first 'Live Positively Week', a pan-European initiative which will mobilise employees and other stakeholders within the company's European network to take action and join in with its sustainability programme. 

The focus of Coca‑Cola Europe's first ever Live Positively Week is on packaging and recycling. Over 3,000 employees across 38 countries will work in unison to collect waste by cleaning up a variety of rivers, lakes, beaches, streets and parks.  In addition more than 30,000 employees will be involved in other environmental awareness building projects. 

Throughout the week employees within Coca‑Cola GB will take part in a number of environmental initiatives.  The week will kick off with a workshop for all employees to raise awareness and understanding of key environmental issues and the steps that Coca‑Cola is taking to build a sustainable business.  Later in the week staff will take part in a river clean up with Thames21 and will be encouraged to be active and support local businesses with meetings held in a local cafe.

'Live Positively' is one of the ways Coca‑Cola describes the work it does in the area of sustainability and represents the company's commitment to put sustainability at the core of everything it does.  One of its key principles is to start from inside the organisation to make sure that employees are passionate about the Company's values as a responsible corporate citizen and have both the desire and the opportunity to live these values as individuals.

Each European market, working with chosen partners such as NGOs, local authorities and customers, has identified its own clean-up activity for the week. Projects range from cleaning sections of Rivers in Europe to a clear up of parks in major cities such as Athens and Madrid Employees will be given the equipment they need to collect waste and a partnership will be established with a collection agency to take away and recycle the waste. 

Explaining Live Positively Week, Sanjay Guha, President of Coca‑Cola GB, said: "Through Live Positively Week we want to employ all of our manpower to help us to meet our social and environmental goals, while engaging with employees and enabling them to make a difference. 

"Last year we set about engaging with our employees around Live Positively with the simple purpose of making sure that we were all aware of it and understood the essence of what it represented. In 2009, we wanted to take our people from awareness and understanding to passion and action, which is why we decided to launch Live Positively Week.

"We selected packaging and recycling for the first Live Positively Week because our people told us that this was their priority area for understanding what we do as a business, and it is an area in which everyone has the opportunity to contribute."

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For media enquiries:  Coca‑Cola press office:  Tel: + 44 (0)20 8237 3782. Email: gbpressoffice@eur.ko.com

Notes to Editors:  The Coca‑Cola Company is the world's largest beverage company, refreshing consumers with nearly 500 sparkling and still brands.  Along with 'Coca‑Cola', recognized as the world's most valuable brand, the Company's portfolio includes 12 other billion dollar brands, including Diet Coke, Fanta, Sprite, Coca‑Cola Zero, glaceau vitaminwater, Powerade, Minute Maid and Georgia Coffee.  Globally, it is the No. 1 provider of sparkling beverages, juices and juice drinks and ready-to-drink teas and coffees.  Through the world's largest beverage distribution system, consumers in more than 200 countries enjoy the Company's beverages at a rate of nearly 1.6 billion servings a day. With an enduring commitment to building sustainable communities, the Company is focused on initiatives that protect the environment, conserve resources and enhance the economic development of the communities where we operate.  For more information about the Company, please visit the website at www.thecoca-colacompany.com.

About 'LIVE POSITIVELY'
'LIVE POSITIVELY' is one of the ways Coca‑Cola describes the work we do in the area of sustainability. It is described as 'our commitment to redesigning the way we work and live so that sustainability is part of everything we do.'   The company has clear, operational goals and plans across the system in seven areas:

• Beverage benefits
• Active, healthy lifestyles
• Climate and energy protection
• Packaging/recycling
• Global Water Stewardship
• Community and