Despite growing public scrutiny and legal challenges over its use of plastic, Coca-Cola appears to be moving backward on packaging sustainability.

Earlier this decade, the soda giant publicly pledged to decrease its use of virgin plastic and boost the share of its beverages sold in reusable containers. But in a blog post last week, the company quietly dropped those targets. Coca-Cola’s “evolved” plastics strategy now seems to rest almost entirely on cleaning up existing plastic waste and recycling—though its recycling targets are now weaker than they were before.

“We remain committed to building long-term business resilience and earning our social license to operate,” the company’s executive vice president for sustainability, Bea Perez, said in a statement.

Coke’s announcement is part of a broader trend of companies walking back or falling short of their plastics sustainability targets. Last month, a progress report from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation—a nonprofit that advocates for a “circular economy” in which resources are conserved—showed that hundreds of companies had collectively fallen short of the progress needed to meet a range of voluntary plastics commitments by 2025.

The companies pledged to cut virgin plastic use by 18% below 2018 values, but have only achieved a 3% reduction as of 2023. They said they would totally eliminate polyvinyl chloride—a type of plastic suspected of leaching hazardous chemicals—but have only used 1% less by weight. They promised to increase the amount of reusable packaging they offered, but have made no progress toward that goal.

Sam Pearse, plastics campaign manager for the nonprofit Story of Stuff — which advocates for reusable alternatives to single-use plastics — said the trend suggests companies aren’t serious about their plastics targets. A pledge is “this thing they might try to do if the stars align … but it’s not core to the business operation.

“Once you start seeing that cycle a number of times, it’s hard to not be skeptical about the intention,” he........

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