Letter From Coke to Shareholders as Rebuttal

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The Coca-Cola Company

Statement Against Share-Owner Proposal on Recycling

The Coca-Cola Company is committed to demonstrating clear leadership and innovation in sustaining the environment. We are proud that over the years our efforts have helped to make soft drink containers the most recycled packaging in the world. However, we do realize that the fate of discarded product packages in the marketplace is one of our most visible environmental issues.

Our Company does have a comprehensive recycling strategy. It takes into account the reality that the solid waste issue requires different solutions for different localities. To this end, our new environmental management system ensures that measurable, locally relevant goals, action plans and programs are put into place that will significantly reduce the environmental impact of packaging resulting from the operation of our enterprise.

And as part of our recycling strategy, in the U.S. our bottlers are in the process of setting meaningful goals for increasing our use of recycled plastic. It is important to note that we are already using 10% recycled content in one out of every four plastic bottles. Beyond that, we will work towards increasing the use of recycled material based on local market conditions and emerging technologies.

We do plan to increase our use of recycled plastic, but the timeframe and goals set forth in this share owner proposal would displace significant levels of material currently being used by other industries. Clearly, there is not an environmental benefit if we create a situation where increased use of recycled plastic by our system simply results in an increased use of virgin material by others that currently use recycled plastic.

Another goal for our Company is to encourage more participation by our customers in recycling programs and to assist in developing new recycling options to increase the amount of material recovered. We will shortly begin a program to integrate environmental messages in to our advertising campaigns and marketing initiatives. And at colleges, stadiums and other venues that offer opportunities for collecting beverage containers, local Coca-Cola bottlers have begun working with our customers on collection and recycling programs.

We are committed to being a part of the solution to beverage container recycling and litter issues and will continue to take a strong leadership position in this regard.

We believe this proposal, however well intentioned, is not in the best interest of our business.