Now it's time for Coca-Cola to step up to an environmental challenge posed by some of its stockholders. A proxy proposal presented for a shareholder vote at Coca-Cola's annual meeting Wednesday called for the company to adopt a comprehensive recycling strategy.

The proposal called for using 25 percent recycled plastic in Coke bottles and recycling 80 percent of cans and bottles by 2005. It was opposed by the company management, which said it wants to increase use of recycled materials but that specific goals would have to be based on local market conditions and emerging technologies. (Coke has also opposed making consumers pay deposits on bottles.)

The shareholders' recycling proposal was overwhelmingly defeated to no one's surprise. Seldom do shareholder resolutions receive much support. But that wasn't the point. The purpose was to raise the consciousness of corporate management and investors.

In fact, similar failed proxy proposals relating to environmental concerns have recently generated sufficient stirs to cause major corporations to change the way they do business.

Two years ago, Home Depot was faced with a proposal that it halt lumber purchases from old-growth forests. Though the proposal received only a small percentage of the shares voted, the company subsequently enacted a policy prohibiting the purchase of lumber from the Great Bear Rainforest in British Columbia and other ancient forests. And, DuPont, the international plastics and paint giant, announced this month that it has nixed for good its plans to mine for titanium near the Okefenokee Swamp. The company began to reconsider the controversial mining following a shareholder proposal opposing it.

The recycling proposal on the Coke ballot this week was submitted by shareholders representing $50 million in company stock and included well-known socially responsible investment funds like Trillium Asset Management and Domini Social Investments. Atlanta shareholder Lewis Regenstein, a supporter of the resolution, expressed faith that Coca-Cola would become a soft drink recycling leader, noting Coke Chairman Doug Daft's leadership on environmental concerns.

Other supporters pointed out that in Daft's native Australia, the company already uses 25 percent recycled plastic in its bottles.

The Georgia-based Grassroots Recycling Network says Coca-Cola creates 2 million wasted bottles and cans every hour and that beverage container waste increased 50 percent in the United States between 1992 and 1999.

"Life tastes good" is Coke's new slogan. No reason it won't taste just as good in a can or bottle made from recycled materials.

This editorial appeared in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on May 17, 2001.
c. 2001 Cox News Service