14 DAY TRIAL // This July 1, Coca-Cola Enterprises, PepsiCo and Britvic announced that they wished to green up their working agenda by improving on the ecological footprint of their supply chains.
The companies agreed to implement a series of green-oriented measures after learning that, according to several estimates, the supply chain keeping the soft drink industry in the United Kingdom up and running emitted some 4.5 million tones of carbon dioxide equivalent on a yearly basis.
Business Green reports that, all things considered, said supply chains owes its “unflattering” ecological footprint to unsustainable packaging and to fertilizers used to grow the fruits that are later used to manufacture various soft drinks.
It appears that, each and every year, the soft drink industry in the United Kingdom uses an impressive 3 million tones of oranges.
Most of these fruit come from Brazil, where farmers do not shy away from using fertilizers that have been documented to harm natural ecosystems and up environmental pollution levels.
Should Brazilian farmers switch to more environmentally-friendly fertilizers, whatever fruit-based drinks are produced and marketed in the United Kingdom would experience a 20% drop in their ecological footprint.
As far as packaging goes, environmentalists say that companies in the soft drink industry only recycle some 25% of the plastic and glass bottles that they sell their beverages in.
Therefore, soft drink manufacturers are expected to roll out measures intended to increase packaging recycling rates.
What's more, they will be asked to improve the energy efficiency of their facilities, and make sure that no water is wasted while producing soft drinks.
“The soft drinks sector is a business success story, worth over £14bn [€16.36bn / $21.29bn] to the UK economy and employing over 12,000 people, so it is vital that we work together to improve the environmental performance of the industry,” UK Food Minister David Heath commented on this initiative.