First of all, it is worth remembering that greenwashing, used by large corporations as a strategy to clean up their image, is known as greenwashing. It is a tool to exploit consumers’ growing environmental sensitivity within a fundamentally unsustainable business model. Less than a decade ago, many large companies that now promote themselves in eco-friendly campaigns were radically opposed to energy transition policies. The “greenwashing” can appear in many forms, for example, in the indications, the adjectives, the colors, and the symbols used to create a false impression that a product is “greener” than it is not.

Limiting temperature rise by 1.5 degrees is vital. According to the Paris Agreement, Coca-Cola announces its plan to achieve it: it will be net zero emissions by 2040 across its value chain.

Over the years, this company has become one of the most polluting globally. According to the environmental movement Break Free From Plastic (BFFP), conducted in 2019, Coca-Cola is the largest plastic polluter. This is not the first data on the unsustainable production of the soft drink company, which produces 200,000 plastic bottles per minute.

Considering that more than 90% of the emissions generated by Coca-Cola are those over which it has no direct control (ingredients it uses, packaging, refrigeration equipment, transport, and distribution). With the conviction that the battle against climate change requires working together, CCEP will do everything possible to reduce them by joining forces with its strategic suppliers.

But what is “Circular Seas”? A project co-financed by The Coca-Cola Foundation of Coca-Cola in Spain to clean up our coasts and oceans. The ultimate goal, set for 2025, is to collect the equivalent of 100% of the cans and bottles marketed, bet on innovation in sustainable and recyclable packaging, and promote the culture of reuse and recycling. Specifically, for 2018 it is proposed to collect 250 tons of waste, 25 of which will be PET plastics. “Coca-Cola’s social and environmental commitment is not new, and our goal is to achieve carbon neutrality by 2040, ten years ahead of the European target,” says Carmen Gómez-Acebo, Sustainability Director Iberia Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP).

But guess what? Yes, you thought right. Circular seas are only a fantastic idea. Coca-Cola did not change ANYTHING in their production process to AVOID producing these cans instead of trying to “clean them” from the ocean.

Furthermore, In December of the same year (2020), Coca-Cola renewed its delivery vehicles, which carried its products through the streets of Spain with a slogan that read, “We reduce emissions with…. ecologically improved vehicles”. The multinational company fell into greenwashing. The magazine Ballena Blanca did a fact-check on this campaign. The trucks and vans had only renewed the engine to Euro VI. In other words, they continued to be diesel and to release polluting gases into the atmosphere.

But what can we say to Coca-Cola?

• Environmental problems cannot be solved with advertising solutions.
• The legal responsibility of the packager refers to all the packaging he places on the market.
• Deposit, return, and refund systems encourage the return of used packaging to the collection system and facilitate its reuse or recycling.
• Greenwashing seriously harms the work of environmental professionals.

Focusing a corporate advertising campaign on a manifest breach of a legal responsibility demonstrates the company’s limited capacity to incorporate environmental commitments into its discourse. Thanks to the famous Coke Leak, it is not in vain that we know that the soft drink multinational works against the measures related to health and the environment that European governments are trying to promote. The fact that this is not a media scandal shows the multinational’s control over the media.