Jacklin Tzocheva: The path of sustainable development is long, but we keep moving forward

The Corporate Affairs & Sustainability Director at Coca-Cola HBC Bulgaria will present the company's ESG best practices and lift the curtains on its packaging innovations at the upcoming ESG - Investing in our future forum. Here's what she had to say on the topic in advance for Darik Business Review:

Coca-Cola HBC has been named the world's most sustainable beverage company by the Dow Jones 2022 Index. You have also been named the world's best-performing beverage company in the S&P Global Sustainability Yearbook for 2023:

We are truly proud to have welcomed 2023 with these two significant recognitions. For the twelfth year in a row, Coca-Cola HBC ranked among the top three in the sector, and for the sixth time was also named an industry leader by the Dow Jones Index. This is one of the world's leading sustainability benchmarks, and we were able to build on last year's achievement. At the same time, our Group also received the highest score of even more than 7,800 companies in 61 sectors recognized in the S&P Sustainability Yearbook, being named an "Industry Leader."

Of course, these figures and recognitions bring satisfaction to our entire team, but what is even more valuable are actually all the small but important steps we are taking on the path of sustainability, thanks to which several significant achievements are already a fact. Believe me, behind every step we take forward are not only ambitious goals but also a lot of hard work, desire, and dedication.

We have made the bold commitment to achieving net zero emissions by 2040 and the equally important challenge to collect and recycle 100% of the packaging we place on the market by 2030. Because we believe that our vision for a "World Without Waste" is achievable, and we keep proving it with results. Already, 100% of the packaging of all Coca-Cola products in Bulgaria is recyclable, and at the same time, we have managed to reduce our direct carbon emissions by 30%, saving over 90,000 tons of emissions from our overall operations in the country during 2020 and 2021. This is how we managed to meet two of the long-term targets we had set ourselves locally by 2025 ahead of schedule.

The full interview with Jacklin Tzocheva can be found here.