Can you talk about you or your company’s efforts relating to renewability, sustainability, or other environmentally friendly activities?

Coca-Cola Bottlers Malaysia (CCBM) embarked on a sustainability journey from day one of our operations. The greenfield plant of our distribution hub in Bandar Enstek, Malaysia is also designed and equipped with numerous sustainability features such as rainwater harvesting, rooftop solar panel, a building lighting automation system to regulate temperature, low-energy conveyor motors, skylights, process heating recovery and reuse and many others.

As part of the company’s mission towards a sustainable future, we have invested in a state-of-the-art automated storage retrieval system (ASRS) warehouse, tripling our plant’s site storage capacity, and paving the path to sustainable manufacturing. With ASRS, which is the first PowerStore System deployed in Southeast Asia, the company is set to contribute to Malaysia’s role as a regional hub and centre of excellence for advanced, automated intralogistics. The ASRS warehouse is a significant investment in sustainable manufacturing for the company, to support volume growth, increase our operational efficiency across the supply chain, reduce environmental impact by cutting energy consumption through automation and is an important step in helping to future-proof our operations. This year, we are planning another solar panel installation project at our ASRS warehouse with a potential annual energy reduction of additional 1,600 tonnes of CO2 emission per year, or the equivalent of saving up to 70,000 trees yearly.

Since 2016, CCBM has allocated more than RM4m to its sustainability initiatives, which span three pillars in Malaysia – World Without Waste, Women’s Economic Empowerment and Water Stewardship. The company is the founding member of the Malaysian Recycling Alliance (MAREA), collaborating with the Malaysian government and other stakeholders to drive the singular goal of a greener Malaysia through circular economy solutions.

Why are sustainability officers well-placed to drive change in the business world?

For us at Coca-Cola, everyone is responsible and expected to drive the sustainability agenda for the company, championing and monitoring its efforts. The interconnected global challenges of packaging waste and climate change have made this a focus for our business, our people, and our communities. We are taking a hard look at the packaging we use and how we can drive change.

Each one of us in the company has a responsibility to create systemic change through a circular economy for our packaging – from how bottles and cans are designed and manufactured to how they’re recycled and reused. Our goal is to make 100% of our packaging recyclable globally by 2025 and to use at least 50% recycled material in our packaging by 2030.

As a global beverage company, we are focused on our entire packaging lifecycle and recognise our responsibility to help solve the global plastic packaging waste issue. The Coca-Cola Company’s World Without Waste program is an ambitious sustainable packaging initiative that focuses on three key areas: design, collect and partner. And, as we work toward a world without waste, we aim to collect and recycle a bottle or can — regardless of where it comes from — for every single one we sell by 2030.