• Thursday, March 28, 2024
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Joining the human race on its quest for environmental sustainability

Nwamaka Onyemelukwe

While humanity refers to the human race, it is also a concept that envelops nuances such as humanity as a race, our ethical behaviour and responsibility to ourselves, our environment and our global political identity. Collectively, we have one major goal of surviving against all odds and living life as satisfactory as our circumstances would allow us.

In 2003, 22 humanitarian aid workers were killed by a bomb attack on the Canal Hotel in Baghdad, Iraq. After this attack, the United Nations designated August 19 each year to pay tribute to the workers killed in the course of their work and to honour all aid and health workers who, despite all odds, continue to provide support to people in need.

Each year, World Humanitarian Day advocates for the survival, well-being, and dignity of people affected by crises, and the safety and security of aid workers. This year there is a focus on the Human Race and the consequences of the climate crisis on more vulnerable people which calls for solidarity of stakeholders to take more meaningful climate actions.

Climate change and global warming are not exactly a novelty anymore. The havoc being created by climate emergencies has been recorded and proven to have an unparalleled effect on a global scale, especially in developing countries.

However, it is largely ironic that the communities being hit hardest by the effects of climate change are the most vulnerable – and they contribute least to the global climate emergency. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published a report in August 2021 highlighting the devastating effects of climate change on the environment.

Read Also: Coca-Cola’s education project in Nigeria ends with many students impacted

The report explains that emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are responsible for roughly 1.1 degrees Celsius of warming since 1850-1900. This global temperature is expected to reach or exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius in the next 20 years if immediate and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions do not occur
worldwide.

Nigeria, like so many other countries of the world, has its share of climate change disasters. 25 years ago in the north-eastern region (presently comprising Borno and Yobe states), the southern part of Lake Chad which lies inside the Nigerian territory dried up. A greater part of Nigeria’s Guinea Savannah region has been stripped of its vegetation cover.

In late August 2012, Nigeria was hit by the worst flooding ever experienced in 40 years, affecting about seven million people in communities across 33 states including Kogi and Abia. With the sample size in view, it is evident that communities that do not have many industrial activities seem to be directly hit by the effects of climate change.

The pollution of their air, water and land largely affects their means of livelihood.

Therefore, the call to action to reduce carbon footprint and encourage environmentally sustainable activities should be a collective effort as it affects us all. For companies like Coca-Cola, sustainability has become enshrined in the organisational culture. It looks inward and continuously reassesses its internal processes and systems to ensure the company takes meaningful actions to control its carbon footprint and initiate environmentally sustainable projects that affect water, women, community well-being, sustainable packaging, climate protection, human and workplace rights, and sustainable agriculture.

The world, in general, is currently being plagued with a plastic problem. Most fast-moving consumer products are usually packaged in ready to go plastic containers for ease and convenience, and they eventually end up being discarded in the wrong places by the
end-users.

One could argue that this challenge should not be of concern to the manufacturers of the products being consumed. But at Coca-Cola, we recognise the long-term impact of plastic pollution and our shared responsibility to consumers and the environment. For this reason, we launched the ‘World Without Waste’ initiative in 2018 to champion the
conversation on plastic pollution and call for urgent and collaborative sustainable actions for change.

This has led to ambitious and innovative efforts to revamp the company’s packaging lifecycle from how bottles and cans are designed and produced, to how they are recycled and repurposed. These plans would culminate in the company using 50% recycled material in packaging by 2030, creating a close system of recovering packaging materials from the environment, recycling or repurposing them and working with community stakeholders and industry peers to invest in recycling innovation, facilities, organisations and initiatives.

The fight to achieve an environmentally sustainable future is not an independent effort, which is why Coca-Cola is keen on partnership-driven efforts to proffer solutions to the country’s climate change problem. It is important to note that Coca-Cola is currently the first global implementation partner for The Ocean Cleanup’s river project.

This project’s objective is to stem the tide of marine waste by implementing technology-driven cleanup systems and intercepting plastic debris from 15 rivers around the world by the end of 2022. In Nigeria, Coca-Cola along with its bottling partner, the Nigerian Bottling Company, has been at the forefront of companioning various climate change initiatives.

These include various actions from the way we source our ingredients, to designing more environmentally friendly packaging, transitioning our manufacturing facilities to renewable energy, optimized route design to drive fuel efficiencies for our distribution trucks to equipment innovation of our cooling and dispensing trade assets that are hydrofluorocarbon- (HFC) free.

Coca-Cola has also championed the establishment of the Food and Beverage Recycling Alliance (FBRA). FBRA is a collaborative platform committed to mopping post-consumer wastes from our environment. This is the first alliance that brings together competing brands and companies for a shared cause.

The efforts of the FBRA have so far led to the recovery and recycling of over 100 million PET bottles. Other remarkable initiatives include The Recycling Scheme for Women and Youth Empowerment (RESWAYE), Project Revive, DORI, Cash for Trash, Waste in the City, Waste to Wealth, Cleanup Naija and Recycle Pay.

These are projects that serve a dual purpose of empowering community members to collect bottles and plastic for recycling while being financially rewarded for their efforts. Through the RecylesPay initiative by the African Clean-Up Initiative (ACI), 2,576 school children received access to education in exchange for plastic waste as 56 schools (45 private schools and 11 public schools) across the target communities were impacted.

The collective impact of these projects has led to a significant improvement in the target communities’ standard of living and quality of life. So far, through our environmental sustainability initiatives, over 2 billion bottles have been recycled and several collection hubs have been established across various locations – creating over 2,000 direct and indirect jobs in the process.

In March 2021, grants worth over N303 million were awarded to eight NGOs from the philanthropic arm of the company, The Coca-Cola Foundation to drive packaging recovery and economic inclusion projects for underserved communities while contributing tremendously to climate action. To achieve a sustainable future – one that is safer to live in – we cannot act alone.

The crisis created by climate change is proof of the interconnected nature of our world. According to the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Report, we are gradually approaching a tipping point beyond which the effect of climate change may become irreversible. The climate crisis doesn’t affect everyone equally; people in vulnerable communities are already losing their homes, livelihoods, and lives. In the race against the climate crisis, we cannot leave anyone behind.

If we fail to work together to achieve a healthy and sustainable planet, the whole of humanity stands to lose. Therefore, to win the race against the climate emergency, every action counts. That is why Coca-Cola Nigeria is committed to driving the company’s vision of refreshing the world and making a difference across the communities where we live and work.

 

Onyemelukwe is the director, Public Affairs, Communications and Sustainability, Coca-Cola Nigeria