Interview with Neville Isdell

Neville Isdell is CEO of the Coca-Cola Company

What does the Annual Meeting theme, “The Power of Collaborative Innovation” mean in your business? How will you use the Annual Meeting to collaborate with other stakeholders to address your top issue on the global agenda?

The economic, environmental and social challenges facing the world today are so complex that business must partner with governments, civil society and NGOs to achieve breakthrough innovation.  As part of the Annual Meeting, The Coca-Cola Company will use the World Economic Forum platforms to address the issues associated with sustainable communities, specifically water sustainability and scarcity.
When society faces global challenges like water scarcity, we all need to come together to leverage our individual efforts. Business leaders have a critical role to play. Supporting the communities we serve is not just enlightened self-interest, it is quite literally self-interest. The Forum presents a unique opportunity for businesses, governments, civil society and NGOs to take collective action on a global scale.

In which new ways are people and organizations collaborating and how important is this for effective competition in your industry?

The collaboration that is occurring around water issues is not necessarily new but water scarcity is changing the way people and organizations are working to address our planet's water challenges.
Today, more than one billion people do not have access to safe water. This lack of access is further complicated by floods, droughts and the decreasing reliability of water supply.  To make a difference on this global challenge, governments, civil society and businesses must work together as never before. For business leaders in particular, I believe we need to speak up, stand up, and scale up our efforts on water sustainability.
Why must business play a role? Businesses of every size and from every industry rely on water. For some, like my company, water is a main ingredient. For other companies, water is a key part of the production process or the supply chain. Water is not just important to our businesses. It is critical to the communities we serve. We cannot have a sustainable business unless the communities we serve are sustainable themselves.
We are focusing on water because this is where The Coca-Cola Company can have a real and positive impact. Our goal is to replace every drop of water we use in our beverages and their production. For us that means reducing the amount of water used to produce our beverages, recycling water used for manufacturing processes so it can be returned safely to the environment, and replenishing water in communities and nature through locally relevant projects.

Do you think we are seeing a significant shift in the way the public and private sector can collaborate and what are the implications for business?

We don’t think it is a shift as much as it is a realization that business, civil society and governments need not have adversarial relationships.  There is a greater realization that all parties can work together and achieve goals while working with others.  The one common denominator we see among the most successful and prosperous communities we serve is a strong commitment to sustainability. A commitment shared by business, government and civil society.
This collaboration yields sustainable communities…which can only be good for business.
In our own experience at The Coca-Cola Company, we've witnessed it time and again. Our fortunes are directly tied to the health and prosperity of the communities we serve. At the same time, the strength of those communities is largely defined by the character of the businesses that operate in them.
Business is starting to take note that these collaborative efforts can yield sustainability in many forms, like jobs, investments and conservation.

Given the demographic changes that we know are underway, such as increasing percentages of older populations in some regions versus a "youth bulge" in others, how is your corporation adapting to these shifts?

The global demographic divide is one of the world's most profound challenges. On one side of the divide are countries like Europe, Japan and South Korea…mostly wealthy nations with low birth rates and aging, declining populations. On the other side are mostly poor countries with low life expectancies and high birth rates.
While The Coca-Cola Company and others see opportunities on both sides of the demographic divide, there is very little point in talking about opportunities for business if communities don't grow first.
And sustainable communities are a job for all of us: economic development and employment opportunities... water and sanitation... education... health care... and so much more.