Coca-Cola & Bottling Partners Announce Sustainability Fund
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The Coca-Cola Company and Eight Leading Bottling Partners Announce Creation of Sustainability-Focused Venture Capital Fund in Partnership with Greycroft
$137.7 Million Fund to Focus on Key Investments in Packaging, Decarbonization and Other Initiatives with the Potential to Reduce the Coca-Cola System’s Carbon Footprint
ATLANTA, July 12, 2023 – The Coca-Cola Company and eight bottling partners from around the world today announced the closing of a new, $137.7 million venture capital fund focusing on sustainability investments.
Greycroft, a seed-to-growth venture capital firm, will manage the Greycroft Coca-Cola System Sustainability Fund. The fund is the first of its kind for Greycroft, which invests in enterprise and consumer solutions across life cycles and industries.
The Coca-Cola system’s carbon footprint is a major priority for the fund, so it will focus on five key areas with the most potential impact to start:
Packaging
Heating and cooling
Facility decarbonization
Distribution
Supply chain
“This fund offers an opportunity to pioneer innovative solutions and help scale them quickly within the Coca-Cola system and across the industry,” said John Murphy, President and Chief Financial Officer of The Coca-Cola Company. “We expect to benefit from getting access to emerging technology and science for sustainability and carbon reduction.”
The fund will seek to invest in companies at the point of commercialization. For Greycroft, partnering with the Coca-Cola system presents an attractive opportunity to help scale innovations alongside some of the top bottling operations in the world.
“The market for sustainable supply chain and manufacturing technology has continued to grow as consumer brands rise to meet the demands of environmentally conscious customers,” said Dana Settle, Greycroft Co-Founder and Managing Partner. “Greycroft has an ‘invest anywhere’ approach that we believe allows us to identify promising startups with climate tech solutions ready to scale.”
Participants Across the World
The fund’s $137.7 million in capital comes primarily from $15 million of committed capital from each of the following companies:
The Coca-Cola Company
Arca Continental
Coca-Cola Bottling Co. UNITED
Coca-Cola Consolidated
Coca-Cola Europacific Partners
Coca-Cola FEMSA
Coca-Cola HBC
Reyes Coca-Cola Bottling
Swire Coca-Cola
Together, these bottlers represent nearly half of Coca-Cola system volume around the world.
The system has a long history of investment in sustainability-focused projects that continue to make a difference in issues of global importance. For example:
In Latin America, The Coca-Cola Company and Arca Continental have invested in leading recycled PET processing company PetStar; Coca-Cola FEMSA has invested in IMER and a high-tech PET recycling plant, PLANETA.
In the Philippines, Coca-Cola Beverages Philippines and Indorama Ventures invested in PETValue, the largest PET recycling plant in the country.
In Indonesia, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners and Dynapack invested in the Amandina PET recycled content production facility; in Australia, as part of a cross-industry partnership with Cleanaway, Asahi Beverages and Pact Group, CCEP has invested in PET plastic recycling and production facilities.
In Europe, The Coca-Cola Company provided Ioniqa with a loan to help develop technology to transform mixed-color, partly contaminated PET waste into clear, food-grade PET.
CCEP, through CCEP Ventures, has invested in recycling start-up CuRe Technology, which uses polyester rejuvenation to target plastics that cannot be recycled by mechanical recycling methods and prevents them from being incinerated, downcycled or sent to landfill.
Coca-Cola HBC has invested in in-house rPET production in Italy, Poland and Romania, while implementing a transition to 100% rPET portfolios in Switzerland, Italy and Austria. Similar transitions in Romania and the Island of Ireland are planned for later this year.
Several system bottlers have issued green bonds, including Arca Continental, Coca-Cola FEMSA and Coca-Cola HBC.
Swire Coca-Cola has invested in establishing the first food-grade ready plastic recycling facility in Hong Kong.
Learn more about sustainability at The Coca-Cola Company at https://www.coca-colacompany.com/reports/business-and-sustainability-report
About The Coca-Cola Company
The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE: KO) is a total beverage company with products sold in more than 200 countries and territories. Our company’s purpose is to refresh the world and make a difference. We sell multiple billion-dollar brands across several beverage categories worldwide. Our portfolio of sparkling soft drink brands includes Coca-Cola, Sprite and Fanta. Our hydration, sports, coffee and tea brands include Dasani, smartwater, vitaminwater, Topo Chico, BODYARMOR, Powerade, Costa, Georgia, Gold Peak and Ayataka. Our nutrition, juice, dairy and plant-based beverage brands include Minute Maid, Simply, innocent, Del Valle, fairlife and AdeS. We’re constantly transforming our portfolio, from reducing sugar in our drinks to bringing innovative new products to market. We seek to positively impact people’s lives, communities and the planet through water replenishment, packaging recycling, sustainable sourcing practices and carbon emissions reductions across our value chain. Together with our bottling partners, we employ more than 700,000 people, helping bring economic opportunity to local communities worldwide. Learn more at www.coca-colacompany.com/ and follow us on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn.
About Greycroft
Greycroft is a seed-to-growth venture capital firm that partners with entrepreneurs of all backgrounds to build category-defining companies. We have deep experience investing in consumer, enterprise, health tech, and fintech sectors around the globe and work as a team to support and advise entrepreneurs, empowering them to execute on their visions. Greycroft has raised over $3 billion in capital and has made over 400 investments since inception. For more information, please visit https://www.greycroft.com.
