Coca Cola Enterprises decreased its carbon footprint by 8.5 percent from 2010 to 2011, while increasing production volume by 3.5 percent, according to the company's 2011 corporate responsibility and sustainability report.
In 2010 CCE, the sole licensed operator for products of The Coca-Cola Company in a number of Western European countries, produced 840,000 metric tons of CO2 equivalent. In 2011 this figure fell to 769,000 metric tons of CO2 equivalent. Some 56 percent of the company's carbon emissions in 2011 came from selling, cooling and vending operations, the report says. Its operations and commercial sites accounted for 23 percent of its emissions and its distribution and business travel accounted for 21 percent.
In 2011, the company invested a total of $23 million of capital expenditure in carbon reduction projects. As part of this it has targeted coolers, the largest source of its carbon footprint. CCE says it had had roughly 581,000 pieces of cooling equipment (coolers, vendors and fountain machines) in the marketplace at the end of 2011, and that year it retrofitted or refurbished 54,000 cooler units.
Retrofit techniques include fitting doors to open-front coolers. This technique can cut energy use by up to 50 percent and has so far been applied to 50 percent of the company's open-front coolers, the report says. The company has also installed LED lighting and energy management devices in its cooler fleet, the report says. CCE no longer buys open-front coolers and all new refrigeration devices are fitted with the energy management device.
In 2011, CCE introduced three additional "Eco-Combi" trucks to its Netherlands fleet, bringing the total to eight. The trucks reduce emissions per pallet by 20 percent, according to the report. In January 2012, the company introduced a more efficient dual-fuel (diesel-biogas) version which should reduce emissions by an estimated 35 percent per pallet, the company said.
By 2020 the company plans to source 35 percent of the energy it uses in its manufacturing from renewable or low-carbon sources. In Sweden CCE has been using 100 percent renewable energy since 2008. In 2011 the company installed solar photovoltaic panels on the roof of its new distribution center at Heppignies, Belgium. In early 2012, CCE installed PV panels at its Sidcup, Edmonton and Wakefield plants in Great Britain. It is developing plans for wind power at sites across Western Europe.
Last year also saw the company reduce the amount of water required to make 1 liter of product, to 1.43 liters. This represents a reduction of 13 percent since 2007, and a 3.4 percent reduction year-on-year (see graph, below). 
The company has a 2020 target of using 1.2 liters of water to produce 1 liter of product.
CCE's Morpeth plant in Great Britain embarked on a water saving drive in 2011. The plant mapped and analyzed its water consumption, installed sub-metering to monitor water use on daily and weekly basis, reviewed its cleaning processes, improved its rinse water consumption rate, and raised employee awareness of saving water. As a result, the facility's water use ratio fell to 1.24 liters per liter of product in 2011, compared to 1.74 liters per liter of product in 2010.
CCE's total consumption in 2011 was 9.4 million cubic meters, down from 9.5 million cubic meters in 2010.
The company is targeting a 25 percent reduction in the weight of is packaging that it uses, across all formats, by 2020 against a 2010 baseline. Year-on-year the company has reduced its packaging weight from 131 grams to 127.5 grams per liter of product. This represents a 2.7 percent decrease.
One way the company is looking to reduce the weight of its packaging is by removing corrugated cardboard trays from its cases of small PET bottles. This approach was trialled this year. Once fully rolled out, the initiative should save 4,481 metric tons of corrugated cardboard a year, equivalent to 14 percent of the total used by CCE.
The company is also aiming to make 100 percent of its packaging recyclable by 2014. For the past three years 99 percent of its packaging has been recyclable, the report says.
CCE's 2010 report won the Best Report award, the top honor, at the CR Reporting Awards 2011.
