According to a news post from the Environmental Leader, as Coca-Cola nears the completion of a project to retrofit their facilities, the company announces new plans to tackle climate change and implement sustainability projects.

Jan. 12, 2009

Coca-Cola Enterprises has announced that they’re almost done with a significant part of their overall corporate sustainability project. Over the past several months, the company has been working on a major lighting retrofit of its California facilities, including a large production facility in Downey, CA. The result will be a savings of 5.6 million kilowatt-hours annually.

The energy saved from the project will result in a savings of 113 million kilowatt-hours over the 20-year life of the system. With that amount of energy, California could power 537 average homes every year. That’s equivalent to planting a 1,038-acre forest or saving almost half a million gallon of gasoline every year. Coca-Cola achieved these results by replacing over 4,000 lights with a new high-intensity fluorescent system from Orion Energy Systems at 24 locations. They also installed solar panels on the roof of its Los Angels facility.

Coca-Cola’s CSO John Brock has announced a number of new sustainability plans, including a fleet of large-scale, hybrid electric trucks, pushing new recycling programs (which have been shown to be working), and adding energy-efficient coolers to reduce carbon footprint.

Other beverage companies have also joined the effort to go green.