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Coca-Cola’s Cape Town Crisis: Examining Companies’ Water Rights Obligations in a Changing Climate

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 February 2022

Shannon Marcoux Open the ORCID record for Shannon Marcoux [Opens in a new window]
Shannon Marcoux*
Affiliation:
International Legal Fellow, Natural Justice (Cape Town), South Africa Views expressed in this article are the author’s and do not represent the views of Natural Justice as an organization.
*
*Corresponding author. Email: ShannonRMarcoux@gmail.com
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Extract

While Coca-Cola portrays itself as a ‘water neutrality’ leader, its failures during Cape Town’s water crisis exemplify the changing nature of corporate human rights obligations in the face of climate change. Between 2015 and 2018, drought conditions plunged Cape Town into a crisis, leading to increasingly strict household water restrictions and depriving families of their constitutionally guaranteed water allowance.1 However, in December 2017, when Cape Town officials called for a 45% reduction in commercial water use, Coca-Cola’s local independent bottler – Coca-Cola Peninsula Beverages (CCPB) – refused to reduce its 44 million-litre monthly withdrawals.2 The city subjected households to water restrictions and price increases up to 556%, while businesses only saw a 104% price increase with no consumption restrictions.3

Keywords

climate changeSouth Africawater rights
Type
Developments in the Field
Information
Business and Human Rights Journal , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , June 2022 , pp. 298 - 302
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

1 Visser, Wessel P, ‘A Perfect Storm: The Ramifications of Cape Town’s Drought Crisis’ (2018) 14 Journal for Transdisciplinary Research in Southern Africa 1, 3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Steve Kretzmann and Raymond Joseph, ‘Coca-Cola, the City of Cape Town and Day Zero Tariffs,’ News24 (9 May 2020), https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/coca-cola-and-cape-towns-sweetheart-day-zero-deal-20200509#:~:text=Coca%2DCola%20did%20help%20fund,was%20directed%20to%20this%20project (accessed 7 January 2022).

3 Ibid.

4 Visser, note 1, 4.

5 Kretzmann and Joseph, note 2.

6 Brian Browdie, ‘Cape Town’s Bottlers and Brewers are Coming Under Fire for Guzzling Water in a Drought’, Quartz Africa (23 February 2018), https://qz.com/africa/1214249/cape-tower-drought-crisis-coca-cola-bottlers-slammed-for-using-too-much-water/ (accessed 7 January 2022).

7 Visser, note 1, 5.

8 Kretzmann and Joseph, note 2.

9 Tracey Skillington, Climate Justice and Human Rights, 1st edn (New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2017) 215 (citing the example of Nestlé’s Chairperson arguing in an April 2013 interview that ‘access to water is not a public right’).

10 G.A. Res. 64/292, The Human Right to Water and Sanitation (28 July 2010).

11 David Hall and Emanuele Lobina, ‘Conflicts Companies, Human Rights and Water: A Critical Review of Local Corporate Practices and Global Corporate Initiatives’, Public Services International Research Unit 18 (2012), http://www.world-psi.org/sites/default/files/documents/research/psiru_conflicts_human_rights_and_water.pdf (accessed 7 January 2022).

12 Skillington, note 9, 216–17.

13 The Coca-Cola Company, ‘Water Stewardship Timeline,’ https://www.coca-colacompany.com/sustainable-business/water-stewardship (accessed 10 April 2021).

14 Amit Srivastava, ‘Never Mind the Greenwash – Coca Cola Can Never be “Water Neutral”’, Ecologist (25 August 2015), https://theecologist.org/2015/aug/25/never-mind-greenwash-coca-cola-can-never-be-water-neutral (accessed 7 January 2022).

15 Craig Welch, ‘Why Cape Town is Running Out of Water and Who’s Next’, National Geographic (5 March 2018), https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/cape-town-running-out-of-water-drought-taps-shutoff-other-cities (accessed 7 January 2022).

16 Piotr Wolski, ‘What Cape Town Learned From its Drought’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (16 April 2018), https://thebulletin.org/2018/04/what-cape-town-learned-from-its-drought/ (accessed 7 January 2022).

17 CDP, ‘The Coca-Cola Company – Water Security 2020’ (2020), https://www.coca-colacompany.com/content/dam/journey/us/en/policies/pdf/sustainability/2020-cdp-water-response.pdf (accessed 7 January 2022).

18 Human Rights Council, ‘Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Implementing the United Nations “Protect, Respect and Remedy” Framework’, A/HRC/17/31 13(a) (21 March 2011).

19 Coca-Cola Company, ‘The Coca-Cola Company Human Rights Policy’ (2017), https://www.coca-colacompany.com/content/dam/journey/us/en/policies/pdf/human-workplace-rights/human-rights-principles/human-rights-policy-pdf-english.pdf (accessed 7 January 2022).

20 Ibid, 3.

21 Coca-Cola Company, 2019 Business & Sustainability Report 33 (2019), https://www.coca-colacompany.com/content/dam/journey/us/en/reports/coca-cola-business-and-sustainability-report-2019.pdf#page=31 (accessed 7 January 2022).

22 CDP, ‘PepsiCo, Inc. – Water Security 2020,’ 16 (2020), https://www.pepsico.com/docs/album/esg-topics-policies/2020-cdp-water-response.pdf?sfvrsn=a6df494a_0 (accessed 7 January 2022).

23 Fred Pearce, ‘Greenwash: Are Coke’s Green Claims the Real Thing?’, The Guardian (4 December 2008), https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/dec/04/coca-cola-coke-water-neutral (accessed 7 January 2022).

24 Coca-Cola Company, note 21.

25 Macchi, Chiara, ‘The Climate Change Dimension of Business and Human Rights: The Gradual Consolidation of a Concept of “Climate Due Diligence”’, (2021) 6 Business & Human Rights Journal 93, 113CrossRefGoogle Scholar (‘Importantly, in the same way as, under the UNGPs, a corporation’s failure to address its human rights impacts cannot be offset by the corporation’s voluntary corporate social responsibility initiatives, it is doubtful that purchasing a carbon offset would extinguish the corporation’s responsibility to stop its contribution to global warming.’)

26 Hall and Lobina, note 11, 17.

27 Salil Tripathi and Jason Morrison, ‘Water and Human Rights: Exploring the Roles and Responsibilities of Business’, The CEO Water Mandate (March 2009), https://ceowatermandate.org/files/Business_Water_and_Human_Rights_Discussion_Paper.pdf (accessed 7 January 2022).

28 ‘Coca-Cola Invests in Cape Town Water Fund’, 26:7 Civil Engineering: Magazine of the South African Institution of Civil Engineering 40 (August 2018), https://dxi97tvbmhbca.cloudfront.net/upload/user/image/SAICE_2018-07-August_Civil_Engineering_Magazine120191130020006649.pdf (accessed 7 January 2022).

29 Pearce, note 23.

30 Ibid.

31 PepsiCo, ‘Our Commitment to Human Rights’ (2019), https://www.pepsico.com/docs/album/esg-topics-policies/2019-pepsico-human-rights-report.pdf (accessed 7 January 2022).

32 Pascale et al, “Increasing Risk of Another Cape Town ‘Day Zero’ Drought in the 21st Century’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (2020), https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/117/47/29495.full.pdf (accessed 7 January 2022).

33 Hall and Lobina, note 11, 9.

34 Pascale et al, note 32.

35 Jaffe, Rachael, ‘Equity and Ecology in South African Water Systems’ (2020) 23 University of Denver Water Law Review 147 Google Scholar (arguing that South Africa’s legislation and policies are not compatible with the social and ecological ecosystems of the region); Alycia Kokos, ‘Policy Analysis of the Water Crisis in Cape Town, South Africa’ (2018) 18 Sustainable Development Law & Policy 28 (suggesting that the Cape Town government’s failure to update and maintain government-run water infrastructure systems in response to the impacts of climate change exacerbated the crisis).