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To combat the toll on the environment, Dr Pepper cleaned bottles with air instead of water on 56 production lines in 2010, and by 2015, it hopes to cut water use and wastewater discharge by 10 percent for each gallon of finished product. "As a beverage company, water is in everything we do, it's a primary ingredient," said Tim Gratto, Dr Pepper's vice president of sustainability. The Coca-Cola Co. has committed to improving water efficiency by 20 percent by the end of this year and becoming water neutral
-- returning to the environment any water used. The company is already returning 35 percent. "We know the importance of water to the world and the planet, and we know the importance of water to our business," said Bea Perez, the company's chief sustainability officer, explaining that the company's long-term plans define water "as a life blood ... but also as a risk." For Pepsi Co., the wakeup call came when it laid out four possible scenarios for 2030 and discovered water was the greatest risk in each. Last year, Pepsi met its goal of becoming 20 percent more efficient by 2015, saving the company some $17 million in water expenses over five years, said Dan Bena, the company's director of sustainability. Pepsi's other goal is to provide 3 million people with access to clean drinking water by 2015, and has partnered with environmental groups to focus on rural areas in parts of the developing world. Each day, Bena said, 200 million hours are spent hauling water to communities that have no plumbing
-- more hours than all employees at Wal-Mart, UPS, McDonalds, IBM, Target and Kroger work in a week. If you free up that time, he said, people can work more, making money that could potentially be spent buying Pepsi products. And for beverage companies, that's the point. "If you don't address it, it's a significant risk," Bena said. "If you do proactively address it ... you turn them into opportunities." Most companies partner with environmental groups that have the scientific knowledge to guarantee success. The partnership between Coca-Cola and the World Wildlife Fund expanded its focus in 2007 from rivers and streams near the company's Atlanta headquarters to preserving high-profile waterways, such as the Central Europe's Danube River and the Yangtze, Asia's longest river, said WWF CEO Carter Roberts. "As a society, we're going to have a huge crash if all these companies don't take action at the same time," Roberts said.
[Associated
Press;
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