Building on our report earlier this week on the impact COVID-19 has had on the sustainability agenda, ESM caught up with a number of industry leaders seeking to drive positive change, including Michael Dickstein, Group Director, Sustainability and Community, Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling Company.
The key question to driving sustainability in the ‘new normal’ is actual shopping behaviour. There is an important role for retailers, as well as for producers of consumer goods to accelerate sustainable propositions, and to communicate the relevance of this shift for consumers and broader communities.
New retail trends are emerging quickly – think of e-commerce, for example – as well as new shopper behaviours that have resulted in high stock-up of basic products and demand for affordability. These trends will probably continue in the new normal, and they will require more efficiencies across the entire supply chain. In turn, data-advanced analytics will help optimise demand forecasts, but also the related carbon footprint in the entire supply chain.
At Coca-Cola HBC, I am extremely proud of what my colleagues and our partners have achieved in this challenging period.
During the lockdown, we have significantly stepped up our community and volunteering activities, and we have accelerated our flagship community programme #YouthEmpowered. Since its launch in 2017, we have supported more than 300,000 young people.
We have also identified a new science-based target for 2030, to help limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees. In addition, we have continued to reduce our emissions, the water that we use in our operations, as well as calories across our products – all in line with the plans that we set out at the beginning of the year.
I strongly believe that a lot of companies in retail and consumer goods are already front-runners in disclosing ESG information. A great many also engage in benchmarking indices like CDP [formerly the Climate Disclosure Project] and the Dow Jones Sustainability Index.
At Coca-Cola HBC, we are fully transparent about the progress against each of our sustainability Mission 2025 commitments, including those areas where we need to accelerate.
© 2020 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Stephen Wynne-Jones. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine.
