Simon Baldry md, Coca-Cola Enterprises
Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE) md Simon Baldry more than lived up to his goal of leaving a lasting environmental legacy as a primary sponsor for the London Olympic Games.
CCE set itself a target of recycling all of the plastic bottles used during the Olympics and Paralympics. Some 15M were collected and returned to shelves as part of 63M new bottles over a six week period.
Baldry truly showcased CCE’s environmental credentials during the summer games; not least by putting 22% of sugar cane-based polyethylene terephthalate (PET) into its Coke bottles and 25% recycled PET.
Over the past year under his leadership CCE has been involved in a raft of activities, including the joint venture with ECO Plastics of the Continuum Recycling facility for PET. Continuum Recycling is now at full capacity and has sorted over 250M bottles since it was opened last year. It is helping the company to raise levels of recycled materials in its bottles.
Baldry has also campaigned for government action to raise the levels of kerbside PET recycling.
He has demonstrated that CCE is prepared to put its money where its mouth is as far as raising its sustainability credentials are concerned.
He has set seven targets for CCE’s sustainable growth by 2020, which include reducing the company’s greenhouse gas emissions, water footprint and raising the sustainability of its packaging, amongst others.