COCA-COLA Beverages Philippines Inc. (CCBPI), the bottling arm of Coca-Cola in the country, has completed the installation of almost 14,000 solar panels in its Davao del Sur, Misamis Oriental and Bacolod plants in the first quarter of 2021.
The firm said a multi-phased solar panel project is underway that covers four more sites— namely, Canlubang, Sta. Rosa, Zamboanga and Cebu—with 2022 as a target deadline.
This expansion translates to a 24,000 solar panel project, with the total capacity of 9.4 megawatts. More projects are in the pipeline— two plants in North Luzon and the Visayas are being assessed for renewable energy (RE) integration.
According to Coca-Cola Philippines, energy efficiency is one of the company’s strategic investment areas. Efforts to further integrate RE into its operations are part of its Cleaner Energy 2.0 initiative—a roadmap toward becoming a leader in clean energy use and energy use ratio in Southeast Asia by 2023.
Even with the challenges brought about by the pandemic, Coca-Cola Philippines said it steadily poured an initial US$63 million in investments for 2021 and $95 million in 2020—to ensure the highest standards of safety, quality and sustainability for every bottle that reaches its customers.
To date, as much as 65 percent of Coca-Cola Philippines’ total energy consumption is sourced from renewable and clean energy, which are geothermal, solar and biomass resources.
The company’s two mega plants in Canlubang and Sta. Rosa in Laguna were the first to utilize RE in 2018. All of Coca-Cola’s manufacturing sites that are viable to be converted to 100 percent RE, given the existing grid and connectivity infrastructure, have been transitioned to use clean energy.
These sites are Sta. Rosa, Canlubang, Ilocos, (Calasiao) Pangasinan, Cebu, San Fernando in Pampanga and Meycauayan.
“Organizations of our scale need to consciously and deliberately manage our environmental impact. By placing sustainability at the core of our operations, we are able to demonstrate that growing a successful business through sound and responsible enterprise strategies is highly achievable,” said Gareth McGeown, president and chief executive officer of Coca-Cola Beverages Philippines Inc. (PR)