National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) has submitted a shareholder proposal to The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE: KO) for the 2026 Annual Meeting requesting that the Board commission and publish, by March 31, 2027, an independent report evaluating Coca-Cola’s plastics packaging policies based on non-biased, objectively verifiable, scientifically accurate, and economically thorough research. The proposal appears as Item 5 on Page 91 of Coca-Cola’s 2026 proxy statement.1 NLPC urges shareholders to vote FOR the proposal.
The Case Against Coca-Cola’s Current Packaging Strategy
Coca-Cola produces approximately 3.45 million metric tons of plastic packaging annually, making its packaging policies among the most consequential — and most costly — operational decisions the Company makes.2 Since 2018, those policies have been governed not by independent peer-reviewed science, but by the “World Without Waste” initiative developed in coordination with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF), an advocacy organization whose “circular economy” framework has proven neither scientifically sound nor economically viable at scale.3
Every major target Coca-Cola set under that framework has been missed. In December 2024, the Company quietly abandoned its pledge to reduce virgin plastic use by 3 million metric tons, eliminated its reusable packaging goal entirely, and pushed all remaining deadlines to 20354 — on the same day that UN plastics treaty negotiations in Busan, South Korea collapsed without agreement.
What the Science Actually Shows
A landmark 2024 peer-reviewed study in Environmental Science & Technology — by researchers at the University of Sheffield, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, and the University of Cambridge — found that in 15 of 16 product categories, plastics produce 10 to 90 percent fewer lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions than non-plastic alternatives.5 For Coca-Cola specifically, PET plastic bottles carry a substantially lower lifecycle carbon footprint than glass or aluminum, the formats the circular economy agenda favors. Replacing PET at scale would raise freight costs, increase per-unit emissions, and drive up consumer prices.
The Financial and Legal Risks Are Real
The rPET price premium over virgin PET has reached as high as $350 per metric ton in European markets.6 Industry compliance specialists project that Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) laws — already enacted in seven U.S. states and actively supported by Coca-Cola through the Business Coalition for a Global Plastics Treaty — will impose a 15 to 40 percent uplift on total packaging costs for affected producers.7 A D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in September 2024 that a greenwashing lawsuit against Coca-Cola over its sustainability marketing may proceed. Keurig Dr Pepper paid a $1.5 million SEC settlement in 2024 for comparable recyclability misrepresentations in its 10-K filings.
Why Shareholders Should Vote FOR Item 5
NLPC’s proposal does not ask Coca-Cola to abandon sustainability.8 It asks the Company to ground its plastics packaging policies in rigorous, independent science and economics — rather than the prescriptions of advocacy organizations whose conclusions are predetermined. The Board claims such analysis already exists. If it does, publishing it should be straightforward. If it does not, shareholders and consumers both deserve to know.
Vote FOR Item 5 at Coca-Cola’s 2026 Annual Meeting. For questions, contact Paul Chesser, Director of NLPC’s Corporate Integrity Project, at [email protected].
ENDNOTES:
- https://investors.coca-colacompany.com/_assets/cocacolacompany/sec/0001104659-26-028215/0001104659-26-028215.pdf
- https://resource-recycling.com/plastics/2024/12/04/coca-cola-evolves-sustainability-goals-timelines/
- https://investors.coca-colacompany.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/923/the-coca-cola-company-announces-new-global-vision-to-help-create-a-world-without-waste
- https://www.packagingdive.com/news/coca-cola-new-packaging-sustainability-goals-2035/734379/
- https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/news/replacing-plastics-alternatives-worse-greenhouse-gas-emissions-most-cases-study-finds
- https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/pet-beverage-packaging-market
- https://www.ecoenclose.com/resources/epr-packaging-requirements
- https://nlpc.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Coca-Cola-proposal-plastics-2026.pdf
