The University of Michigan continues to hold hands with Coca-Cola following the January release of an investigative report on the company’s facilities in India. Many states in India have banned Coca-Cola from being sold within their borders over concerns about pesticides in the products. New Delhi activists smashed Coke bottles in August 2006 and protested shops where the drinks were on sale.

Alternatively, the UM administration is satisfied with a letter from the company promising to address environmental issues raised in the report that violate the U’s ethical Code of Conduct for vendors. Unsatisfied students maintain that Coke’s neglect of the Code should get it kicked off campus.

Coke Accused of Environmental Abuse

In November of 2004, Students Organizing for Labor and Economic Equality accused Coca-Cola of violating the U’s ethical Vendor Code of Conduct (VCC), established in 2003 to set an ethical and socially responsible standard for vendors’ business practices. Students filed a complaint with the VCC Dispute Review Board, which cited environmental abuse in India and union busting through the murder of labor organizers in Colombia. The Coca-Cola case is the first to test the VCC process.

Specific allegations against Coke in India included depletion of water in extremely drought-prone areas. Students referenced the Kerala High Court’s December 16, 2003 ruling that Coca-Cola’s extraction of ground water was illegal. The largest Coke plant in Kerala was shut down by a march of thousands of community members.

Students asserted that Coke plants had damaged farmers’ livelihoods by polluting surrounding ground water and soil. They said, Coke also distributed its toxic waste byproduct to farmers under the guise of fertilizer.

Tested in July 2003 by the BBC at the University of Exeter, dangerous concentrations of cadmium and lead were found in the sludge being put on crops by farmers with their bare hands. Coca-Cola denies knowing the “soil additive” would threaten health of farm workers.

The fourth complaint was the presence of pesticides found in Coca-Cola products on the market in India. In August 2003, a Delhi-based NGO called the Centre for Science and Environment released findings of high concentrations of DDT, malathion and lindane in the products. They contained 24 times the standard amount of pesticide residue for bottled water sold in the European Union. Believed to affect the liver, kidney, and neural and immune systems, lindane was the most commonly found pesticide, present in 100 per cent of the samples. Some contained 140 times the proposed level of individual pesticides in soft drinks.

Coca-Cola refused to print pesticide percentages on product labels despite the legal demands of Indian governmental bodies.

Students Take Action

In July 2005, a national commission of six students and seven university officials first convened to set a fair, independent
assessment protocol for investigations in India and Colombia. After it consulted with stakeholders over three months, five subject-matter experts helped draft guidelines which were all rejected by Coke.

Fed up with the corporation’s attempt to control the process of developing independent investigation guidelines, student representatives pulled out of the commission in October 2005. They claimed Coke was hiding behind the commission as new cases of human rights violations surfaced in Turkey, Indonesia, Guatemala, and Peru. The remaining group would eventually dissolve.

U of M cut $4.1 million-dollar contracts on the 2006 New Year. Coke missed UM’s second deadline requiring them to name third-party monitoring groups and protocols to investigate allegations in India and Colombia. After four months of banishment, Coke informed the university on April 10th that it would allow two specific organizations to assess its practices in India and Colombia. The contract was renewed within two days.

Jump-started by SOLE, the Coalition to Cut Contracts with Coca-Cola (CCCC) was then a 5,000-student group consisting of 20+ student groups. They acted as messengers for the affected communities in India and Colombia.

CCCC did not approve of Coca-Cola’s choices for independent third-party assessors: the United Nation’s International Labor Organization (ILO) and The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI). Two weeks prior to the reinstatement of Coke the student coalition presented a packet of information to administrators. The packet advised against the ILO’s investigation in Colombia, insisting that the UN agency was closely tied to Coke. TERI was also deemed illegitimate as an independent third-party assessor.

A press release from the India Resource Center (IRC) called attention to Coca-Cola India Limited’s sponsorship of the group (University of Michigan Reinstates Coca-Cola Contract Prematurely April 12, 2006). IRC supports movements against corporate globalization in India and has been a close ally with UM students. TERI’s website lists Coca-Cola amongst 69 members of the TERI–Business Council for Sustainable Development, India. Having conducted various projects for Coca-Cola regarding water resources, one survey published by TERI in December 2001 named Coca-Cola among the most responsible companies in India.

The press release also mentions a 2003 Earth Day event organized by TERI: the Vice-President for Public Affairs and Communication at Coca-Cola India was a keynote speaker. Twelve days after this information was presented to the administration, uniformed coalition members received phone calls from the media asking for student reactions to Coke being brought back. Their response, “It is now clearer than ever that the University administration is accountable to corporate money - not to its obligations to respect human rights, worker rights or the student body,” CCCC members wrote to the Michigan Daily (Coke restored behind students’ backs April 13, 2006).

Investigation in India

Six plants were studied by TERI in the villages of Kaladera, Mehndiganj, Nabipur, Nemam, Pirangut, and Sathupalle. Amit Srivastava (IRC) noted that plants in Plachimada and Ballia were absent from the list though these communities have been some of the most vocal in protesting Coca-Cola’s practices.

Coca-Cola claims, "Our compliance with regulations and standards has been validated”, in a response to the TERI report posted on www.cokefacts.com. Although TERI declares that Coke generally meets government guidelines, it adds, "Absent or weak governmental regulations and norms should be countered by strong company policies and self regulated norms." Currently, the company's own standards to safeguard soil, groundwater, and water bodies remain unmet or are inadequate. Compliance with existing wastewater requirements "should be ensured at the earliest," the report advises. TERI also suggests that Coke promptly adopt more stringent criteria for the quality of wastewater applied on land around bottling plants, which may identify the source of faecal coliform and other physicochemical pollutants present in treated wastewater of almost all the plants assessed.

According to the IRC, alleged pollution of water and land around plants were "not examined in detail by the assessment". TERI reported that the rates of wastewater infiltrating the soil could not be verified at any of the sites though it is prescribed by state pollution control boards. According to the IRC, Coca-Cola failed to provide TERI with Environmental Impact Assessments from all six plants. Srivastava maintains that "if TERI was truly independent of Coca-Cola, they could have pressured the company to provide the EIAs". TERI's report implies that structures to measure environmental impacts are either missing or insufficient. The organization recommends that Effluent Treatment Plants be redesigned to more efficiently remove pollutants from wastewater byproduct and include flow-measuring devices.

TERI gave specific recommendations for half of the assessed plants, noting that the Kaladera watershed is overexploited and that Coke’s “operations in this area would continue to be one of the contributors to a worsening water situation and a source of stress to the communities around". TERI identifies Mehndiganj and Nabipur’s aquifers as "critical to overexploited condition" as well. Regarding the year-round cultivation of water-intensive crops such as rice in both areas, TERI condones respect for riparian water rights.

Resentful Communities

TERI encourages assessment of water availability "from a perspective that is wider than business continuity" when choosing locations for bottling plants. TERI relayed that some communities harbor resentment, believing “that the setting up of water intensive units, such as a Coca-Cola plant, does not add value to the local area". For example, "The community in Kala Dera, where the report has recommended a shut down, is very happy with the news. Likewise, other communities in India that have campaigned against Coca-Cola’s abuses of water resources are quite glad that their concerns have been validated," Srivastava related.

TERI promotes Coca-Cola "proactively joining hands with farmers, local governments, and other stakeholders to develop and implement measures for improving the water scenario". Possible measures include supplying piped drinking water to more communities; setting up water-harvesting structures; establishing sprinkler and drip irrigation systems; or setting up social infrastructures such as educational or health institutions.

Suggesting compensations such as these could be seen as TERI letting the company off easy. The IRC, which acts as a telephone line between villages affected by Coke plants in India, takes a harder line: "Coca-Cola must cease all its bottling operations in water-stressed areas in India immediately". Srivastava agrees with TERI that Coke should instantly act to meet company guidelines on pollution.

Students React

"It seems to me that the report concludes quite incontrovertibly that Coke is in violation of the Vendor Code of Conduct," said Sayan Bhattacharyya, a Rackham Graduate School student and member of CCCC. At a campus forum with university administrators, Bhattacharyya and other students demanded that the university suspend purchasing on these grounds.

In a letter to the editors of the Michigan Daily (1/17/08), a Senior member of CCCC, Lindsey Rogers, wrote, "As students, we cannot assume that the University is acting in our best interest or the best interest of the community - local, national or international. Rather, we must be prepared to be the conscience of this university. We must insist that the University uphold its own standards and values."

The University says it will reassess its relationship with Coca-Cola once a report from the ILO is released on the company’s labor practices in Colombia. Student activists are considering filing more complaints with the university regarding Coca-Cola’s oppression of unions in Turkey and Indonesia.