Coke Chokes: Coca-Cola’s Long History of Greenwashing

Tallula O'Brien

When the average person thinks about the source of rising plastic pollution, a few culprits may come to mind. Generally, the fault is placed on trends of industrialization, consumerism, and poor waste management, introduced to us through media as negatives that catalyze environmental degradation. However, the world’s leading polluter of branded plastic, Coca-Cola, remains widely popular despite numerous accusations regarding their plastic reduction goals over the past five years (Break Free From Plastic, 2024). 

In 2018, Coca-Cola introduced its World Without Waste initiative, a global campaign with the goal of making 100% of the company’s packaging recyclable by 2025. In addition to this overall objective, Coca-Cola also pledged to use 50% recycled material in its packaging by 2030, primarily through the use of recycled polyethylene terephthalate (rPET) (Rennie, 2026). rPET is a recycled form of PET, a type of synthetic plastic commonly used in single-use beverage bottles. Despite this promising approach, this campaign has since been widely criticized as yet another example of corporate greenwashing, and is broadly criticized by environmentalists as a false sustainability fix.

Greenwashing is a strategy that relies on misleading claims, packaging, or advertising to make a product appear more eco-friendly than it actually is (“Greenwashing: What It Is and Why It Matters,” 2025). There are many ways that greenwashing can take form, which is why it is particularly hard for the everyday customer to identify which claims are accurate and which are deceptive. One common method that many companies use is the depiction of animals, leaves, trees, or other forms of nature on their packaging; this imagery can lead a consumer to believe that a product is “natural” or of lower harm to the environment. Another example would be vague labels that aren’t from recognizable third-party certifications, which can give the appearance of legitimacy, but do not hold any weight in terms of a product passing industry standards. These tactics often lure in people who are looking to lessen their environmental impact, putting a false perception of sustainable choices in the minds of a product’s consumers. 

Coca-Cola’s history with greenwashing is a long and complicated one. Beginning all the way back in the 1990s, they have regularly pledged to increase recycled content in their packaging, but have faltered numerous times in meeting those standards over the past three decades. Despite any real follow-through, the company has continued to highlight sustainability through its advertising. Coca-Cola has been known to use eco-friendly imagery, such as its classic glass bottle, to market products, even though the soda is sold primarily in single-use plastic bottles (Plastic Pollution Coalition, 2024). Coca-Cola has even created products with an “environmental” appearance, such as Coca-Cola Life, which starred a bright green label and the slogan “sweetness from natural sources”. In addition to visual appeal, the company has featured science educators such as Bill Nye to star in their advertisements; this gives the brand a sense of validity, because it is being endorsed by a trusted advocate in the climate action community. Evidently, the advertisement, as well as Nye, ended up facing heavy public backlash for construing false recycling information about Coca-Cola products (Zilber, 2022). Following the World Without Waste initiative that set their recycled material target to 50% in 2018, an environmental update in 2023 revealed that Coca-Cola had again fallen short on their claims, with only 27% of its primary packaging containing recycled material and a mere 17% of its PET packaging consisting of recycled PET (Rachal, 2024).

This history of repeatedly changing their goalposts with no evidence of development is why Coke has faced so much backlash from environmental groups, and has been involved in quite a few civil cases. In 2021 and 2022, Coca-Cola faced two different lawsuits based on greenwashing accusations. One of these lawsuits was from Earth Island Institute, an environmental nonprofit based in California, which argued that the company was inaccurately presenting their products as sustainable while continuing to be a leading source of branded plastic pollution (“Ending Coke’s Greenwashing: Earth Island Institute,” n.d.). Although the case was dismissed within the year, it was recently revived in 2024, with the D.C. Court of Appeals finding that there was plausibility in Earth Island’s claims. Even though Coca-Cola is far from being held accountable for their deception, the case being active grants hope to a progressive outcome in Coke’s policies. 

One of the biggest obstacles in stopping corporations that harm the environment from gaining power is that their pasts are widely unknown by the general public; this is why spreading awareness about Coca-Cola’s actions is crucial to enacting change. The fate of their success now rests in the hands of consumers. The question is, at what point do we choose to stop accepting broken promises? Is soda worth the cost of our future?

Citations

Break Free From Plastic. (2024). 2023 Global Brand Audit: The Coca-Cola Company is once again the top global plastic polluter | Break Free From Plastic. In www.breakfreefromplastic.org. https://www.breakfreefromplastic.org/2024/02/07/bffp-movement-unveils-2023-global-brand-audit-results/ 

Rennie, F. (2026, June 24). Coca-Cola: Failed commitments. The Scarab Trust. https://www.scarabtrust.org.uk/post/coca-cola-evolving-voluntary-commitments 

Greenwashing: What it is and Why it Matters. (2025). In EcoProducts.com. https://ecoproducts.com/all-stories/greenwashing-what-it-is-and-why-it-matters/ 

Plastic Pollution Coalition. (2024). Coca-Cola Quietly Drops Reuse Targets, Decreases Recycling Goals. In Plastic Pollution Coalition. https://www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org/blog/2024/12/12/coca-cola-quietly-drops-reuse-targets 

Zilber, A. (2022, May 24). Bill Nye the Science Guy accused of “selling out” to Coca-Cola. New York Post. https://nypost.com/2022/05/24/bill-nye-the-science-guy-accused-of-selling-out-to-coca-cola/ 

Rachal, M. (2024). Coca-Cola lowers ambition with new 2035 packaging sustainability targets. In Packaging Dive. https://www.packagingdive.com/news/coca-cola-new-packaging-sustainability-goals-2035/734379/ 

Ending Coke’s Greenwashing :: Earth Island Institute. (n.d.). In www.earthisland.org. Retrieved August 15, 2026, from https://www.earthisland.org/index.php/advocates/suit/coca-cola-plastic