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Sustainability drives positive developments in the community
Coca-Cola HBC Serbia and Bambi have presented their 2022 Sustainability Report, entitled ‘Sustainability: the strength that drives shared change’. This is the tenth Sustainability Report for Coca-Cola HBC Serbia and the third for Bambi.
In a world faced with growing environmental and social challenges, Coca-Cola HBC Serbia and Bambi have reaffirmed their commitment to caring for their employees and partners, the environment, and their impact on communities, disclosing their results transparently.
Using innovative measures and technologies, the two companies have made progress with key indicators. Both firms have greatly reduced their water consumption, with Coca-Cola HBC Serbia saving an astonishing 54 percent of water per liter of beverage produced over the past 15 years, and Bambi cutting water use by 48 percent per tones of products over ten years. The two companies use sustainable electricity, and Coca-Cola HBC Serbia has reduced its energy use per liter by as much as 59 percent over the course of 15 years. In a major achievement, Bambi treats 98 percent of the waste generated at its plant, whilst Coca-Cola HBC Serbia recycles or reuses 99 percent of the waste produced by its factories.
All product packaging used by the two firms is recyclable. Over the past year, Coca-Cola HBC Serbia has introduced two innovations to its packaging, the KeelClip cardboard fastener for can multipacks and attached bottle caps, to reduce plastic use and facilitate collection and recycling of entire packaging units.
‘Over the course of the past decade we bravely took the path of sustainability, where we have been making significant progress as measured by key parameters such as water end energy savings and carbon emission reductions. However, we see sustainability as more than just this: we see it as a strength that unlocks the potential of our people. Both as individuals and as a group we have been growing along the way and supporting people outside our organization in their growth. I am proud of your projects for young people, Coke Summership and Youth Support, as well as our scholarships initiative for the top 25 university students from across Serbia. With strong partnerships, we are continuing on the path of sustainability, together creating a world that future generations will be proud to inherit’, said Svetoslav Atanasov, General Manager at Coca-Cola HBC Serbia and Montenegro, adding that the company had opened a new bottling plant in the Serbian town of Kučevo in 2022 in an investment worth 5 million euros that has generated 50 new jobs.
Bambi has also had a successful 2022.
‘As a leader in the confectionery industry, we are strongly committed to making a positive impact on the local community we operate in. I would like to highlight our two largest investments in the previous year: the opening of our Research and Development Centre, a knowledge lab in which we have invested 2.3 million euros, and the creation of a 500-square-metre recycling point that collects 30 different types of waste produced by our factory. In the past year we carefully monitored consumer habits and made improvements to our vegan portfolio, introduced healthier snack options, and launched a gluten-free product for the first time’, said Ognjen Lazić, Marketing and Commercial Excellence Director at Bambi.
In addition to pursuing a wealth of projects and initiatives, in 2022 the two companies invested 340,000 euros in their local communities and donated over 200,000 liters and 16 tones of products. The Coca-Cola HBC Serbia and Bambi team together numbers 1,763 people, who in 2022 spent 1,500 of their working hours volunteering.
The success of their impressive portfolio of no fewer than 55 brands relies primarily on delivering products of the highest quality. The companies work with more than 38,500 buyers and many Serbian suppliers, which account for the bulk of their procurement budgets: Coca-Cola HBC Serbia spends 81 percent on domestic procurement, whilst for Bambi the figure is 76 percent.
This year’s Sustainability Report remains aligned with the world’s most widely used methodology in this area, developed by Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), and meets the high standards of the United Nations Global Compact for progress reporting.
The 2022 Sustainability Report is available here.
