Sustainability is integrated across every aspect of our business. It is fundamental to our business strategy, which aims to create and share value with all of our stakeholders. This defines how we run our business, carry out our activities and develop our relationships.
In order to address key global challenges affecting our industry, our communities and our planet, we collaborate across all business functions with the aim of seeking solutions. We put significant effort and energy into topics relevant to common welfare: single-use plastic and packaging waste, inequality, climate change, health and nutrition, to name a few.
We truly believe that all businesses have a responsibility in this regard and should be part of the solution to global and local issues. As these challenges cannot be addressed by one company alone, we want to combine forces and knowledge and, therefore, engage with external stakeholders as well.
We have a long history of setting sustainability commitments for our company and tracking our progress towards our goals. In 2018, we decided to communicate our sustainability commitments publicly in a transparent and simple way, launching our Mission 2025.
Our Mission 2025 consists of seventeen sustainability commitments. We created it by following our materiality approach and aligning it with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and their targets. Thus, our Mission 2025 focuses on commitments in six key areas along our value chain: reducing emissions; water use and stewardship; World Without Waste; ingredient sourcing; nutrition; and our people and communities.
Our vision for a world without waste
In 2018 at Davos, James Quincey, Chairman & CEO of The Coca‑Cola Company announced the company's global vision for 'A World Without Waste' - an industry-first goal to collect and recycle the equivalent of every bottle or can it sells globally by 2030. It signals a renewed focus on the entire packaging lifecycle.
Having achieved its goal for designing 100% recyclable packaging in Cyprus, Coca-Cola HBC Cyprus is now focused on designing packages made of recyclable plastic, while also cutting back on materials used in packaging in general. PET packaging, consisting of 20% recyclable plastics, has been available in Cyprus since 2018; the goal is to reach 50% by 2030. In addition, the Company reduced by 86.4% the waste produced during the production process across its factories.
By the end of the year, Coca-Cola HBC Cyprus will have invested €4 million in doing away with plastic foil on aluminium multi-packs and switching over to the new type of packaging known as KeelClip™. It's an initiative undertaken for the first time in the non-alcoholic beverages industry and will translate into reducing plastic usage by approximately 287 tonnes a year.
Within the year we shall be carrying out an important investment, worth €4 million, involving the scrapping of plastic foil wraps on aluminum multi-packs. This initiative is a first for the industry of non-alcoholic beverages, but also for our country as a whole.
To us, initiatives that are collaborative in nature and are driven by sustainable growth, constitute the optimal means for giving back to the community. For the third straight year we are renewing our partnership with the AKTI Project and Research Centre, in implementing the unique Zero Waste Beach project. It aims to mobilise all stakeholders as well as the public in the fight against marine plastic pollution through Intervention and Education, helping people change their attitudes toward the issue of waste. It's a programme that will bequeath a legacy to future generations.
Energy
We recognise the critical consequences of climate change, both for the planet itself and for humans. Correct energy usage is key to our company's sustainable growth, also impacting cost.
Being committed to playing a part in limiting climate change, our priority lies in minimising our environmental footprint across the value chain, including for consumption relating to our supply chain as well as in the end-use of our products.
In this context, the actions we take to cut back on energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions go hand in hand with our contribution to achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, in particular those pertaining to responsible production and consumption, clean energy and countering climate change.
At our factories we see to it that we track energy usage on an ongoing basis, with continuous measurements, we control for gaseous pollutants, and immediately repair energy losses where these are detected. Thanks to this commitment and vigilance, in 2020 we managed to reduce energy consumption at our factories by 5,423,727 MJ - or by 14% compared to 2019. We've also made a pledge that by 2025, 50% of power at our factories will derive from renewable and green energy sources, and that 100% of the electrical energy supplied to our factories will come from renewables.
Water
Water is the source of all life. Safe and clean drinking water is essential to human health and to ecosystems. Being the key ingredient in our products, water is an integral part of the production process since, it is used during the production process as well as for cleaning and disinfecting machinery. It is also necessary to grow the raw materials that we use.
We handle this staple commodity, water, with the respect it deserves. Across our production process, we implement standards and policies geared at the responsible management of water and its recycling. We carry out daily inspections and online measurements and analyses, to track and deal with any water leakage. Our factories recycle the water and re-use it, wherever possible. At the same time, we are designing and implementing a plan to ensure healthy and sustainable management of the water resources that we use - for instance waste processing which protects marine life. In 2020, our productive units re-used and recycled 989,000 litres of water, while our water usage fell by 25.6% compared to 2019 - corresponding to 25,168,608 litres.
In fact, and because of our strategy, the Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS) has granted us certification for responsible water management for all our production units.
Beyond that, and regarding social programmes, over the last seven years we've been working alongside the Global Water Partnership Mediterranean (GWP-Med) organisation in implementing the 'Mission Water' programme, from which Cyprus stands to benefit for years to come, saving 5,840,000 litres of water a year. The programme promotes better water management, by adopting alternative forms like rainwater or grey water, to cover usages such as irrigating green spaces. It's worth noting that, as part of the programme, 19 projects of national importance were carried out, 16 grey water collection systems were installed and restored at schools and athletics grounds, 30 technicians received training, 280 teachers received re-training, while 83,621 residents of Cyprus benefited in one way or another.
