“The Coca-Cola Company exists to benefit and refresh everyone that it touches.”

That is the Coca-Cola Promise and with festivals like the Jal Tarang 2006, where Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Recharge of water were central themes, Coke builds on that promise effectively.

Paper & PET recycling, health, disaster relief and most of all education; Coke in India is making a difference.

Education is the key to making sure that everyone has water in India, and Coke rainwater harvesting projects have totaled more than 270 RWH across the country.

Qoute: The company’s business should refresh the markets, protect, preserve and enhance the environment and strengthen the community… Coca-Cola India provides extensive support for community programs across the country, with a focus on education, health and water conservation.

With 50 more rainwater harvesting structures planned for 2007, 10 in Delhi alone, Coke is slowly but steadily making a difference in the way business has traditionally been done.

Coke makes a lot of money off of the labor and water it extracts in India and traditionally, foreign companies take the money they make and put it back into their own economies rather than the foreign market.

Instead of doing either, Coke is going straight to the source, Coke is going straight to the people that make its money and helping them directly with what they need most, education and structures that harvest rainwater in more self-reliant and sustainable ways.

Now that is an ethical use of power that is for the greater good!

Simple things, like how to use a Drip Gauge can really sensitize a person, especially when there is an ongoing concern for awareness in water conservation.

Rainwater harvesting in India is a way of seeking out cultural identity; how many companies can say they help people get back to their roots?

Searching for the needs of today through quality education and infrastructure for better rainwater harvesting techniques and knowledge, that tomorrow, the grandchildren of our grandchildren, may be the wiser.

Coke rainwater harvesting in India builds on the Coke Promise with a steady and sustainable pace.

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Coke Shareholder Meeting
Coke Rainwater Harvesting

Stressing the importance of rooftop harvesting on all the institutional buildings, 72 structures have already been completed with 64 still in progress as of Feb. 1^st.

Computers provided up to subdivision level have allowed a management information setup system to be implemented, making things easier for state wide administration on a centralized fashion that moves at the speed of an electron, a rather new concept in Himachal government.

The website was developed to support this international ecotourist state, providing transparency on a global basis showing what measures the government has taken to ensure sustainable practices to a sensitive culture.

Solans water supply scheme should be completed by October of this year, Shimla for December. Bhuntar, Bhota, Shah Tlai and Nauti Khad Shimla are projected for completion by the end of the year.

Sewerage schemes will also achieve focus in Rampur, Hamirpur, Una, Dharamsala, Jogindernagar, Arki and Kulu to be completed within 2007s current budget!

While the 45,367 habitations in the state are far to numerous to be attended this year, a drinking water facility will reach at least 4,080 by next year of which 3,000 have already been at least partially attended.

Thats showing the world what really conscious minded governments can do, HURRAY for Himachal!

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Snow Water Harvesting

A circus-like gathering of protesters vied to get the attention of, or steal the spotlight away from Coke CEO E. Neville Isdell: Harvard students beating on plastic barrels with drumsticks, union reps unloading into bullhorns and a blind taste-test daring passers-by to tell the difference between Delaware tap water and the much more expensive variety that Coca-Cola sells under the toney name Dasani.

Coke CEO E. Neville Isdell: Inside, Isdell, suckling at a plastic bottle of Coke, proclaimed the painfully obvious: “Not everyone in this room is going to agree with everyone’s views,” he said. “In the end, we truly want The Coca-Cola Company to be regarded as a great business and recognized as a great corporate citizen.”

One shareholder who labeled such complaints “an attack on capitalism” that diminishes Coca-Cola’s brand won enthusiastic applause from profit-minded shareholders, or what it calls its “share earners.”

Protesters complaints:

• One, sponsored by the New York City Employees Retirement System, sought the establishment of an independent committee to examine whether Coca-Cola colluded with Colombian paramilitary forces in anti-union violence against bottlers in the South American country;

• Another, sponsored by the As You Sow Foundation, pushed for a report that would come up with a strategy to recover and recycle more used bottles and cans;

• A third, sponsored by Harrington Investments and the Sisters of Charity in Cincinnati, sought a report “on the potential environmental and public health damage of each of its plants, affiliates and proposed ventures extracting water from areas of water scarcity in India.”

The realistic concern appears to be water depletion in India, coke is taking steps using rainwater harvesting as reported here but is this enough or is it just a case of drying up natural resources and the human tendency to look for someone to blame?

One thing is for sure, Coke has a great opportunity to become a positive corporate example just as the trend for renewables kicks off. Coke can be to “water” as Israel might be to solar energy plants.

How about a green coke can with a fresh watery look that promotes Cokes new plan to make good on it’s promises?

How about doing something so extreme that it would turn this negative into an undeniable positive?

Coke has done well marketing its beverage, there is no reason why it can not also market a vast environmental footprint, need a few ideas?

It has been almost 17 years since the fast-food war was un-officially won by Pepsi in the US and Coke took refuge in the developing third world. Since that time, people living in the states have rivaled in a fun kind of way their preferred taste, but when you choose Taco Bell, and the only thing available are Pepsi products, you tend to give in to what is at hand.

In the developing nations such as Brazil and India, Coke has been the dominating element in their everyday lives for years, competing even with national brand names like Guaraná Antartica and Thumps up. India opened its international trade restrictions in the 90s while Brazil has felt the Coke presence since the early 70s. A scenario that repeats itself all across the globe in developing nations.

So why is it said that Coke exploits developing nations? That is an ethical question that needs to be held up by facts and then pondered by ones self. While it is true that Coke survived the 80s and 90s with their foreign manufactures and sales, it does not necessarily mean they redirect all their profit away from those people who built it.

In the last 40 years, Coke has been through a lot, and now, a new question arises, the question of rainwater harvesting and sustainability. Coke itself affirms on CokeFacts.org:

The Coca-Cola Company has a special interest in water: we are a hydration company. Every product we sell contains water. Without water, we have no business and it is in the long-term interest of our company to be good stewards of our most critical ingredient. We are committed to helping protect and preserve this resource in all the communities where we operate throughout the world.

Coke is discovering that the world is globalizing itself ever faster by the day, and Coke helped make this possible. In countries like Brazil where resources are so abundant that people in urban centers pollute and waste as a way of life. Coke prospered in accordance to local customs and did irreparable damage to the urban landscape without ever even noticing.

But in India, what worked in other countries, just doesn’t seem to work so well and Coke has learned from mistakes made in countries like Brazil. Where drinking water comes mainly from the underground reservoirs called bawari; Coke has made a serious effort to do right:

Working at the local level we have helped to restore centuries-old bawaris or community reservoirs that had fallen into disrepair. The projects have included active community involvement to remove silt, rubble and algae, and to rebuild the bawariâs traditional, sustainable infrastructure. The restored bawaris provide fresh water to thousands of families in surrounding communities, and have served as the focal point for community education campaigns around water conservation.

In the fight for dam reconstruction, Coke also made an effort that is on par with many non-governmental organizations:

In one of the driest parts of the State of Andrha Padesh, we have worked to reconstruct a dam and reclaim a water storage area that had been rendered useless by silt. Some 16,000 people live in the nearby village and had faced shortages of irrigation and drinking water. The new reservoir – built on a site that was scientifically selected based on its ability to gather and store water – can now hold enough water to irrigate 1000 acres of cropland.

Of course the most astonishing claim by Coke is their claim to how they intend to replenish their usage of such a precious resource through self-sustainable rainwater harvesting:

We have installed rainwater harvesting systems in 28 of our plants and in 10 communities. The collected water is used for plant functions, as well as for recharging aquifers. Today, more than one-third of the total water that we use in our operations is renewed and returned to groundwater systems. Work is underway to equip every one of our India bottling plants with rooftop rainwater harvesting capabilities, which will recycle millions of additional gallons of water each year.

Hopefully, Coke is on the path of righteousness. Making every single bottling plant in India have storm run off and roof harvesting capabilities is ambitious to say the least, but hopefully only the first step. Helping a country like India achieve completely sustainable water supply in the midst of drought is something that the government alone cannot do.

Part of the responsibility for any private company is to the citizens it is trying to benefit with a product or service, not just those working in the factory with dental and medical health care packages. But like any institution dealing in money, Coke has to attend the priorities of their investors, owners, employees and consumers. All that without going bankrupt is a very tricky business.

Protests in India and during the World Water Forum in Mexico are the kinds of things that make the problems Coke is facing all the more evident, according to one article:

The Coca-Cola bottling plant in Mehdiganj, which draws nearly 250,000 liters of water per day according to some estimates, has been the target of the community for nearly five years. Thousands of people have protested the plant in the past, including a major protest on November 24, 2004 in which the police resorted to violence and over 300 people were detained.

Obviously, the communities in India are in many respects unsatisfied with Coke’s efforts as in this passage of the same article:

Touting rainwater harvesting initiatives is central to Coca-Cola’s public relations strategy in India. Although Coca-Cola claims that rainwater harvesting returns a “substantial” part of their water use, when asked how much rainwater was harvested in Mehdiganj, Mr. Kalayan Ranjan of Coca-Cola announced that 7 million liters of water was harvested last year. Even taking a conservative figure of 250,000 liters of water per day that Coca-Cola extracts, the recharge figure given by the Coca-Cola company doesn’t even meet the company’s water needs in Mehdiganj for a month. “Coca-Cola’s claim of substantially returning the water they use through rainwater harvesting is plain hogwash,” said Amit Srivastava of the India Resource Center.

But the politics of business are an intricate web of relations and inter-relations, the fact that not every factory is self-sustainable “right now, this very minute does not mean they wont be as soon as possible.” But these are just what both sides seem to say about the issue.

On the one side, Indian protesters are passionate about the conservation of underground reservoirs and rightly so, while Coke’s rhetoric is just as passionate, but with a vision on the future and their financial priorities. The question to be asked then, is if Coke’s efforts to do the right thing for the people they make money off of, has been enough and if they are not only willing, but able to do more.

One thing is clear, if protesters win their fight to close the bottling plant in Mehdiganj and such protests continue on to other bottling plants, the losses for Coke’s investors will be severe.

Would India be better off without Coke’s help to develop the country? Can Coke make their claims for a sustainable rainwater harvesting system throughout all their bottling plants in India a possibility any time soon? Those are questions for a person to ask and answer on their own. The purpose of this article was only to demonstrate as impartially as possible two sides of the coin; the rest is up to you the reader. Let’s at the same time celebrate the positive steps Coke has taken to make good use of Rainwater Harvesting and it’s increasing support of local communities.

In India, rainwater harvesting is an ancient tradition. From as far back as 4500 BC, the simplest of earthworks in Thar Desert and Rajasthan, would harvest water from the falling rain. These simplest forms of rainwater harvesting would evolve in accordance to the eco-regions within India’s borders. Using rivers, floods, monsoon, underground rivers, surface water and the earth itself, the ancient cast of pallar (water managers) have been respected for thousands of years. Rainwater harvesting in India is more than an age old tradition that varies from region to region, rainwater harvesting is an integral part of Indian identity and cultural history, that without, India would never have been.

Vedic culture did not create rainwater harvesting as it was already being done (although rudimentary still quite effective) in the Thar and Rajasthan deserts long before the Harappan civilization in 2600 BC. Monsoon has a way of dictating how life in any given region will profit from determined amounts of rainfall. Once construction techniques began to improve, more elaborate structures could be undertaken to access water management issues in creative and innovative ways. Not only household water needs, but also farm and irrigation in even the most remote places such as the Thar Desert. To this very day, wells known as “kuis” or “beris” that collect fallen rainwater and prevent evaporation still exist, were first built by caravan travelers that had determined routes through the desert.

More developed wells called “kundis” or “kunds” are still used for drinking water, while “bundela” and “chandela” tanks with steps leading down into them were surrounded by pavilions, gardens, orchards to glorify the king. The type of rainwater harvesting techniques used in India, vary in accordance to the region. In northern India the Himalayan regions use glacier water and artificial glaciers to have water year round. The western Himalayan region which gives life to the Ganga also uses similar ditch technologies to replenish the underground flow of water and produce massive agriculture in an otherwise desolate area. The Thar Desert is an exceptional example of ingenuity and sustainability in low-tech communities. But ingenuity and creativity are what mark most about any region in India, as the solutions have time and time again come from the climatic and geographical conditions in which peoples had found themselves and still find themselves to this very day.

Whether they are harvesting rain from their rooftops, or courtyards, open community lands from artificial wells, monsoon run-off from the water of swollen streams or stored in various bodies or even harvest water from flooded rivers. Rainwater harvesting managers, called “pallar” are an officially recognized cast in India that deserves respect and honor. Usually “pallar” inherit their skills, and perform their service usually in accordance to region. The pallar are not trained in great universities from around the world, much less any inside of India, the pallar learn their abilities from one generation to the next and the most important part of engineering itself, experience. Years of careful observation on a day to day basis, when water needs effect everyday life, and even survival, their creative minds invent solutions that bridge the frontier of time and technology. Ingenuity and creativity in such largely diverse scales are responsible for the plethora of innovative ideas that come from this humble Indian cast.

Prehistoric India brought rainwater harvesting solutions as modern day India also does. These solutions which are diverse and innovative bring new insight into the world of rainwater harvest the world over. Insights that should be studied, and understood, not merely as a science but as cultural identity and a way of thinking that’s roots can be traced to antiquity. As India has so many different regions, it also confronts many different solutions for such a basic and essential human need as a single drop of water. Flood water, post-monsoon drought, underground river collectors, surface water aqueducts, and even evaporation proof community wells for drinking as well as irrigation and other methods of rainwater harvesting; the ancient art of Indian pallar is a tradition that should be respected and understood by anyone interested in better and more ecological ways to use the sky-gift of natural rain.