Coca Cola's Water Neutrality Initiative

Coca-Cola’s Water Neutrality Initiative 1. The public issue that the Coca-Cola Company was facing is this case was its impact on its water use in local communities. The company was depleting local water reserves and introducing dangerous levels of pesticides in its products in and around its global plants. I feel that the nonmarket stakeholders were the ones most concerned by this public issue in the beginning. The global leaders (government) understood that the depletion of the world’s water resources could have a profound effect on the world in the near future. The water shortage also had an effect on the rise in food prices, regional conflicts, and disease. This in turn caused concern in another nonmarket group the general public. The general public are on the front lines in these circumstances, especially in third world countries where there is little corporate regulation and law. Because Coca-Cola is a World Wide conglomerate the global leaders and the general public expect the company to lead the way in terms of corporate social responsibility. I feel that in the beginning of this issue that Coca-Cola was primarily interested in facilitating the needs of their market shareholders. However once the global leaders and general public began to take notice they soon began to sway their views in terms of more efficient and effective methods to resolve their water issues to satisfy both the market shareholders and the nonmarket shareholders. 2. I feel that the geophysical environment and the political environment are the two strategic radar screens that stand out in this particular case. The physical environment affects the behavior and development of the people, both children and adults, who live and work in it. The quality of the physical space and materials provided affects the level of involvement of the children and the quality of interaction between adults and children. Coca-Cola definitely had disrupted the water resources of the local communities

Cited: Lawrence, A. T., & James, W. (2011). Business and Society . New York: McGraw-Hill Irwin .