"Doing business sustainably is an opportunity to stimulate innovation, an engine of economic and social growth". It is, this, one of the drivers reported within the 19th Sustainability Report of Coca-Cola HBC Italy 2022 entitled "The choice to look ahead", reviewed by Deloitte & Touche, prepared according to the international reporting parameters Gri Standards in accordance and published last friday.

A vision of the future, the report points out, that "finds concrete expression in the investments made over the past 10 years by Coca-Cola HBC Italia, the main bottler of The Coca-Cola Company branded products in Italy." The company has invested about half a billion euros in our country in "initiatives aimed at promoting an innovation process particularly focused on the transition to a circular economy model".

At the center of the investments are the company's 6 production plants: 3 dedicated to the production of soft drinks located in Nogara (VR), Oricola (AQ), Marcianise (CE), 2 mineral water bottling sites, Fonti del Vulturea Rionero in Vulture (PZ) and Lurisia in Roccaforte Mondovì* (CN), and an innovative hub located in Gaglianico (BI) dedicated to the production of recycled plastic preforms(rPET) intended for bottling the company's products. 

In the plants, Coca-Cola HBC Italia "has adopted the best production technologies": in particular, 2022 was the year of the reopening of the CCH CircularPET factory in Gaglianico (Biella), which, the report points out, "is now an innovative plant capable of transforming up to 30,000 tons of pet per year into 100% recycled plastic(rPET) preforms destined for bottling the beverage portfolio in Italy".

"Ahead of us we have an ambitious path to continue to grow by creating value for our stakeholders and for the communities that host us: it is no coincidence that the title of this year's Report is 'The choice to look far ahead' -explains Giangiacomo Pierini, corporate affairs & sustainability director of Coca-Cola HBC Italia-. To face the ecological transition, companies must be put in a position to be able to invest, without legislative interventions that redefine new industrial logics far removed from production realities or that lead to the introduction of new taxes". 

"The possible entry into force of the European regulation on packaging, for example -Pierini continues- as hypothesized in the Commission's text, with a cost for the industry of 18.7 billion Euros, or the confirmation of the Plastic and Sugar Tax on January 1, 2024, with an increase in the average tax burden for the industry of 28%, would risk impacting a sector already struggling with raw material price increases and inflation".

The Sustainability Report also recounts Coca-Cola HBC Italia's other areas of action, which include projects aimed at communities: the 62,000 talented young people who took part in the #YouthEmpowered job orientation program and the donation of more than 650,000 meals to Banco Alimentare. The 2022 edition of the Report is also enriched by a first project dedicated to the protection of Italian biodiversity, which features bees as protagonists. The company has adopted a beehive for each of the regions where its production plants and headquarters are located to protect 1.8 million bees, which will pollinate as many flowers.