Voices of Sustainability: Season 2, Episode #2
Hallie Cole
TRT: 23:26
Hello and welcome to the Voices of Sustainability podcast. My name is Halle Cole, and I will be your host and reporter for season two. This season we're looking ahead and continuing the dialogue about sustainability. These episodes feature in-depth conversations with leaders who are helping shape what sustainability will look like in the years to come. I'll be speaking with professionals across fields to highlight the various strategies and challenges faced by the government, businesses, and nonprofits who are all striving to balance economic growth with environmental and social responsibility.
In this episode, I sit with Todd Marty, the Senior Director of Public Affairs and Sustainability at Coca-Cola Consolidated, the largest Coca-Cola bottler in the United States. We discuss how the company approaches sustainability through community partnerships, responsible packaging and messaging, and recycling initiatives, as well as how their work with various local communities and organizations is helping to strengthen circular economies across the communities that they serve. Let's get into it.
Hallie Cole
Now, just to start us off, I was hoping that you, Todd, could share a little bit about yourself, your role, and about Coca-Cola Consolidated as a company.
Todd Marty
Absolutely. Well, hello, Hallie. First off, very excited to be here. I love working with the University of South Carolina. Go Gamecocks! My name's Todd Marty. I've had the opportunity to work for Coca-Cola—within the system of Coca-Cola—actually, this very month, I'll be celebrating my 37th year. So I started back in 1988 up in South Bend, Indiana. And I had the opportunity to come on board with Coca-Cola Consolidated, the largest bottler in North America, back in 2017 as they acquired the territory that I was working in at the time, which was up in the Midwest around Indiana and Ohio. Great organization to work with, outstanding brand. As most folks know, it's the most recognized brand in the world. But just the culture that's created at the local bottler there—Coke Consolidated, is a very rewarding place to work.
Hallie Cole
Well, it sounds like you're working at a great place, and, you know, hats off to you. Just to start us off, I was wondering if you could just briefly tell us how you would define sustainability.
Todd Marty
Yes, sustainability, the definition of it—I had to figure out how to spell it before I could really start understanding what it is. It means so many things to so many different organizations and people. And we spent a lot of time—we brought in functional leads across our entire corporation. We have 17,000 employees underneath our 14 state footprint. And we wanted to bring in the leaders from each function and really get an update of all the great things they were doing in their space, make sure we have a record of it, set some individual goals and work towards it. And some of the front work as we pulled in those functional leaders was, to your point, defining what sustainability means.
So we did come up with a sustainability vision statement. It is “To be stewards of God's natural creation by pursuing outcomes that positively impact our planet, our stakeholders, and the communities we serve.” And then from a definition standpoint, we ask ourselves, well, how do we approach it? And for us, sustainability at Coca-Cola Consolidated includes our responsibility to protect the environment and respect the communities where we live and work. And it's our commitment that's met by adopting business practices that manage carbon across our enterprise. So we feel that everything we do ends up going back to supporting, you know, emissions reduction, and water conservancy, or package recovery. Those are our three pillars.
Hallie Cole
I like that. This sounds like you guys are covering a lot of ground with that.
Todd Marty
Yes, there's a lot going on there for sure.
Hallie Cole
And just going off of that, whether it be what you've seen through what Coca-Cola Consolidated has been doing or just from your own perspective, how do you see sustainability evolving over the next five to 10 years?
Todd Marty
Yeah, another great question. As an industry through the American Beverage Association—so that's Coca-Cola, Pepsi Cola, and Dr. Pepper-Keurig, we all have come together to kind of challenge ourselves to do better in the sustainability space. And as I'd mentioned before, we at Coca-Cola Consolidated lumped that into three categories, so package recycling, emission reduction, and water leadership. So what we plan to do over the next five to ten years is really going to be focused in that space.
And when it comes to package recovery, one of our biggest initiatives right now is really just ensuring we can get the material we need to make future packaging. So a lot of people don't know this, but we make our plastic bottles out of 100% recycled material. So the entire Coca-Cola family—Diet Coke, Cherry Coke, Coca-Cola Classic, Coca-Cola Zero. If it's got the word Coca-Cola in it, and it's put in a 20-ounce plastic bottle, that bottle is made out of 100% recycled material. So the RPET is what we call that. So that's a big commitment. And when you have the lower recycling rates, like we experience across the United States right now, and the amount of volume and the amount of bottles that we produce every day, we understand that there's a supply-demand issue. So the great thing about that, is where do we get our supply? Well, we get our supply by increasing recycling.
Number one, we want to get our consumers educated on the fact that they know and understand as they drink our packaging, they should feel very good about getting that back to a recycle bin so it can get back to a path to us. And then number two, just making sure that we're creating the right business partners out there in the whole circular supply chain. And we're doing all kinds of fun, innovative things to help ensure that we get that done, like tracking and verification. We, just as a system, made an agreement with Republic, who's the second largest hauler and recycler in the nation, to buy material directly from their MRF [Materials Recovery Facility] and their processors. And that's creating circularity in a big way. So that's exciting.
Underneath the emissions reduction, it's really just about doing what we need to do to control the amount of emissions we have in our facilities. We have a very large fleet, as you can imagine. We're looking at fun ways to reduce the amount of fuel and emissions in our truck. We're doing some cutting edge things with LED lighting. We're lightweighting our bottles.
And then, of course, water leadership, because water is really the most important ingredient in every packaging that we sell. And we got to make sure that it's clean and that there's plenty of it. So we're doing our cleanliness programs with municipalities and the communities that we serve.
We're also partnering outside of that. There on campus—the University of South Carolina is a great example. We work with a group called Osprey Initiatives, who has a litter getter. And you have a student group on campus that manages that litter getter for us. It sits in one of your creeks, runs through campus. If a piece of litter happens to blow from campus into the water. We have a trap down there that actually captures that. Your student group goes down and picks that up, led by one of your sustainability gurus, Larry [Cook], who's a great friend of ours. And then he gets that back into your sorting center so that we can get it back into new bottles if it's a bottle or can. So that's fun there too.
Hallie Cole
Wow. You guys do a lot.
Todd Marty
Yeah, I can talk too. I actually can talk so much about it because there's so much going on.
Hallie Cole
Yeah, no, it's great. I was actually wondering though, you mentioned the tracking and verification system in terms of circularity. Can you just explain more about the tracking?
Todd Marty
Yeah, I sure can. So this is brand new. We have just started working with a group called Circular Solutions Advisors. They've been a partner of ours for a while, but this is new technology that they are working on. And we're actually using Hilton Head Island as a pilot because you have so many visitors that are coming to that island and leaving Saturday to Saturday every week. So there's a lot of waste consumed in a short amount of time during that week. And we want to do our part to help increase recycling there.
So we're working with the town. We're working with the different resorts on the island. We're working with a recycler called i2 Recycle, who is a smaller company who actually handles the county's recycling and many of the facilities and the towns. And this particular verification piece, the software that we're working on through Circular Solutions Advisors actually works very similar to what they use in blockchain reporting for the financial world. It's all based on bill of lading. So if you are a golf course on Hilton Head Island, and you have your janitorial service pick up your waste out on the course and bring it back into the recycle bin, then Mike Bennett from i2 Recycle comes by and picks up the waste and takes it back to his sorting facility. He sorts the waste out and then he crushes it down into bales and sells that back as a commodity. But PET goes back to our plastic processors, and the aluminum goes back to the aluminum smelters, where we then have opportunities to buy back the material.
And throughout this whole process and this blockchain reporting that Circular Solutions is working on currently, we should be able to identify that this particular golf course, where you drank that Dasani water and put it in the recycle bin—we can follow that all the way back to the manufacturing center, if and when this process gets ironed out. So it's exciting new innovation that we're investing in and that we're part of, and we're doing it in a place that I think if we could work on—Hilton Head Island—then it can work anywhere in our territory and beyond.
Hallie Cole
You've been talking a lot about different partnerships with schools and with different organizations. Could you explain the importance of collaboration for Coca-Cola Consolidated and y'all's company's sustainability goals? In terms of forming these partnerships and being involved in the community, how do you guys see that as an asset in your business?
Todd Marty
Well, we've realized that it's no secret—the world has a waste problem. Our recycling rates are not where they need to be. And we are a major manufacturer of packaging that people love and consume daily. So we have to do our part to get that back. We know we can't do that alone. It just cannot happen. So I was speaking through that circular wheel, if you will, the supply chain, what I call creating a circular economy or closed loop. You have to partner along the way. And the great thing about our company and our brand is because we've been delivering off of our trucks straight to the point of purchase since the early 1900s, we’re positioned well to build those partnerships.
For example, when we talk about increasing recycling rates and wanting to get our packaging back, where do we want to start? And it's for us at Coke Consolidated, it was like, well, let's start where there's a lot of people that are consuming a lot of our beverages in a short amount of time. So we're right there in the process. We're right there in the supply chain, if you will, and we can help make a difference. But we have to utilize our partners’ resources to do it also.
So for example, we'll just take University of South Carolina, who has a great internal pure reclamation facility. You guys are already doing wonderful things on campus, but you've also got an open mind. So we are doing a case study with the students on campus where we're going to bring some of our sustainability challenges to the student base and give them an opportunity to sit down with our functional leaders and help come up with solutions and then present that back to another group of leaders from our organization that will come in. And just getting their input and their understanding and the questions that they're going to ask us, I think it's going to make a major difference.
What we're finding as we're building these relationships, we're identifying that there's some things that are happening out there that are really great already. So we’re not coming in with the mindset that we've got to reinvent the wheel. We find out, you know, who in the community, in that municipality—it could be a nonprofit organization, could be a university, could be a recycler—what are they doing today? Then how can we help enhance and amplify it to create a bigger impact? And it's working, and we're sharing those best practices with other bottlers across the nation. I mean, we're a global company, so we're not even just in the U.S. We're learning from folks in other countries too as we go.
Hallie Cole
In terms of enhancing and amplifying—I like the way you put that—I guess with some of the partners that you've worked with or just some of the different obstacles that you guys have faced, what sort of behaviors or mindsets, whether they be individual for the consumer or organizational in terms of companies that you guys work with, do you think needs to be emphasized, or I guess you could even say shifted, in order to achieve long-term sustainable strategic planning?
Todd Marty
Yeah, yeah. So I'm just going to stick on that package recovery piece because that's the one that we're really working hard on right now. I was thinking with South Carolina, we had two big golf events. So earlier in April, the PGA Tour goes to Hilton Head Island for The Heritage. And then we just did just out of Spartanburg there, the BMW Charity Classic. You know, the one takeaway that I've had is people want to do the right thing. They just need to understand what that is. And it's so confusing because you could be recycling one material like glass at your house, but then when you travel on vacation or go see grandma or grandpa, their recycler won't take glass. So how do you clarify that in each region? I guess the one solution that I think works the best is just very clear messaging at the point of disposal, right? So that's the most important.
When someone's done with that particular package, whatever it is that they're going to get rid of or throw out. If it's a recyclable item, we want it to be thrown into a place that's going to have the opportunity to live again. And I think that starts with just having a bin available and then having it very clearly messaged based on what the region in that particular area is capable to handle.
Hallie Cole
I was actually just thinking about being on campus last semester, and there's just still uncertainty as to what types of plastics we're allowed to recycle. The confusion around, you know, what is recyclable here versus there, versus the different types of plastics even. So I agree that there just needs to be a more clear messaging or possibly even a more standardized way across the board.
Todd Marty
Yeah, and we try to link in with whatever the standardized policies are. We work with the national companies, so we offer, you know, a blue bin is for recycling. A black bin is for trash. If it's red, that's for medical waste. If it's yellow, that could be for composting. So just having, to your point, some clear, consistent—even if it's colors or messages and getting consumers and citizens to also understand and identify that is is a huge leap in the right direction
Hallie Cole
And kind of on the same train of standardization, do you think that regulation and policy could play a role in shaping, I guess, recyclability, circularity, or even just overall sustainable business practices moving forward?
Todd Marty
You know, at Coke Consolidated, we are keeping an open mind to policy and legislation that could help improve any of our sustainability efforts, right? We have a very robust government affairs department that works with the American Beverage Association and then each state has their own association, and we're members and we sit on the boards of each one of those and the territories that we operate. And we are aligned with some specific guidelines and rules of what we would consider good legislation. And then we lobby to ensure that the folks in the states that we do business understand why or why not we may be for or against some type of legislation.
And it gets tricky when we're talking about mandating things through legislation, because even in the short amount of time that we've had this conversation, we've identified the complexities of all of the sustainability pillars that we have. Truly understanding that takes a lot of stepping back and listening and really researching it. We put this particular department together and along with our entire public affairs team—that is government relations, communications, community, and sustainability—to go and do proactive things in the communities where our consumers are that are going to help not only the environment, but all things in that community. So we try to position ourselves to get things done without having to have legislation for the most part. But if there is a time where we think legislation is needed, then we are talking to the right folks to ensure that the right policies that make sense would be in play.
Hallie Cole
Are there any trends or policies that you can think of that you see as especially influential in the sustainability space?
Todd Marty
We, as an industry, we're pretty proud of the things we've done in the last five or six years. I mean, we put a stake in the ground and said, “Hey, we're going to reduce the amount of plastic that we use in our bottles, even though it may make the shelf life be a little bit shorter, or it may change the look,” right? We came out with a—we call it a belly band that goes around the multi-pack PET bottles, and it used to be a nice clear handle that you could hold, and it looked really good, aesthetically pleasing. Well, now that it's made out of recycled material, it's got more of a tan or browner look, which a brand team would have normally said, “No, we don't want our consumers seeing that. We may lose the sale because they don't like that color.” Well, we're taking the high road and saying the better thing to do is to actually bring it out, message why it's that color, and then let the consumer make a decision.
And we're finding that our consumers are rewarding us for doing things like that, which is outstanding. We do the same thing from green to clear. So one of the other things we identified as we partnered with these haulers and material sorters and these processors, they said one of the problems we have with giving you material to make new bottles is you've got all these different colors. So if it was all clear, it would be easier to recycle, way easier. So we made a commitment to go all clear, which meant that our Sprite bottle that was traditionally green, our Seagram's Ginger Ale, our Mellow Yellow, our Fresca, all left their traditional green colors, which was a very hard thing for our brands team to swallow. But once again, what's the better outcome? And we made them clear. We got creative with our labeling, and we told the story. And once again, we saw that the consumers are rewarding us. That right there, doing those types of things, we're going to continue to do because it's working to make the environment a better place and then also to drive sales and loyalty from our consumers.
Hallie Cole
And it's great that the consumers are responding positively to that. I wanted to ask in general how Coca-Cola Consolidated balances maintaining the integrity and the quality of your product offerings with the need to adapt for more sustainable solutions. Just overall, what is y'all's approach to finding that good balance between having to make sustainable advancements, but also, you know, wanting to keep your consumer base happy?
Todd Marty
Yeah, well, that's a great question. So first and foremost, in our organization and at the Coke company, the quality of our product is number one, right? It's safety for our consumers. So whatever is going into those bottles, we know has been approved by the FDA and is perfectly safe for your consumption. And we put a lot of emphasis on ensuring that it's going to be the best quality, so we do a lot of quality tests in our facilities before the product leaves.
We have on every one of our labels, we ask our consumers to give us feedback if there's any type of an off taste or anything that they don't like, and we take those very seriously and address those. We put damps on our bottles. Every one of them has a date code that expires well before really the integrity of the brand, but we want it to be optimal, right? It's the best tasting timeframe. So, you know, all of that never changes. And we feel like we can continue to do those practices and do the things that are important to us from a sustainability standpoint simultaneously without them getting in the way.
Hallie Cole
That's wonderful. Lastly, I was wondering if you had any final insight or advice that you would share with students or just young professionals that are hoping to make a difference in the sustainability space.
Todd Marty
This actually ties into one last point that I want to make and answers your question. So I've got this really neat opportunity to sit on a board of eight other bottlers, and they're global bottlers so it's not just in the U.S. And we all came together with one thing in mind: Let's take some money, let's all put in $15 million into one bucket. And you have $137.7 million there. And then let's sit down as a group and open this up and partner with a group that wants to bring startup organizations to life, like businesses. So Graycroft is the company that we partnered with, and the approach is that between our two partners, we're able to bring in some really fun, new, innovative solutions that meet our sustainability efforts.
So kind of like that show Shark Tank, right, where you've got this opportunity to sit around and these really bright minds. And they're of all ages, but many of them are young folks that are coming fresh out of college with just aspirations and a good understanding of new technology that's out there. They're just ready to take advantage of what they could accomplish with that technology. And they come to us and they give us these crazy fun ideas. And we sit around and talk to each other and say, well, how would that be able to be implemented into our business, and it's different by region, right? It might work in Europe, and it may not work in the U.S., but we're open to saying, “Would this be a fun idea that could help create a solution or improve our sustainable footprint?” That's the answer to the questions.
I encourage all of you out there that are listening to this podcast, if you've got ideas or if you know people that have ideas, don't hesitate to follow that dream and know and understand that there are funds out there that are put to the side to take advantage of new thoughts and ideas. Back in 1915, the contour Coke bottle was invented, and it fits perfectly in your hand. And whether you are blindfolded or reaching down into an ice chest and just feeling it, you'll know that's a Coke bottle. Somebody came up with that concept. And it's the most recognized package in the world today. We need somebody now to come up with a new idea. So I opened the challenge up to your listeners today, Hallie, to come up with some thoughts and ideas and let us know.
I hope you've enjoyed our conversation with Todd and learned more about how Coca-Cola Consolidated is working to make a difference through its efforts in responsible packaging, strategic partnerships, and recycling innovation. Todd's work is a good reminder that building a more sustainable future requires collaboration at every level. Be sure to tune in for the next episode with Phenogy’s Director of North America, Suzanne Dickerson, where we'll talk about how energy storage technology is shaping the clean energy transition. Thank you for listening, and we'll see you next time.