Good morning, and thank you for the opportunity to speak here today. My name is Gigi Kellett, and I am the National Director of the Think Outside the Bottle campaign. I am speaking on behalf of the tens of thousands of people who have taken action over the past year to support public water systems and Think Outside the Bottle.

The comic Doonesbury has satirized bottled water as the greatest marketing coup in history—a triumph of perceived need over reason. A dozen cities, more than 30 restaurants, over 27,000 people, student groups on 60 campuses, and faith communities across the country have taken the Think Outside the Bottle Pledge. At the same time, pressure continues to build from communities across India that are demanding you close specific bottling plants and compensate people for the damage you have done.

Your corporation has attempted to protect its public image and avoid accountability by recasting itself as a responsible steward of water resources and as a leader in the global effort to address water issues. Unfortunately, Coke’s efforts are more of a distraction than a sincere attempt to address the issues at hand. Let’s take a closer look at “The Real Thing”:

On your $20 million partnership with the World Wildlife Fund to protect watersheds…
Your corporation is missing the essential difference between water charity and water justice. Although the protection programs in seven global watersheds are promising on the surface, the initiative has communities affected by Coke’s bottling asking, “how can the corporation justify contributing to water scarcity in some watersheds to pay for the protection of others?”

On the CEO Water Mandate, your new corporate initiative under the auspices of the UN Global Compact...
Coke has played a lead role in this voluntary initiative being promoted as a way for corporations to make progress in protecting water resources. But this so-called mandate lacks enforcement, is fraught with conflicts of interest, and risks implicating the U.N. in corporate greenwashing. That is why more than 125 public interest leaders from 35 countries have challenged it as a “thinly veiled public relations effort.”  

On the Coke-funded assessment of Coke’s own practices in India, conducted by The Energy Resources Institute…
Coke has attempted to put a big spin on the findings. But, in fact, the study was an indictment of Coke’s practices in several Indian communities. These findings confirm what people in places like Mehdiganj and Plachimada have been saying for years—that Coke is draining water from water scarce areas without regard to community concerns. It even recommends that you close one of these plants down.

On your refusal to allow shareholders to forward the same resolution that saw broad support last year, asking you to publish an annual report on chemical and biological testing data for Coca-Cola’s beverage products, essentially providing more information on breaches in safety of your beverages, we ask: what is Coke trying to hide?

Mr. Isdell, we hear Coke saying: we’re aiming for water neutrality, we’re part of the solution, corporations can lead the way, we’ve been exonerated in India and are effective partners in other parts of the world. We’re working hard to reduce the environmental footprint of our products

We’re here to say that Coke needs to respect the right of communities to decide how water resources are used, and needs to come clean about the water it sells back to us at thousands of times the cost of our own tap water. When will Coke stop using a bait and switch approach, and actually respond directly to the specific changes that people around the world are calling on you to make?

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