Unethical Practices Coca Cola

Unethical Practices by Coca-Cola in Kerala, India
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Institution
Coca-Cola is one of the largest beverage makers in the world and operates bottling plants in many parts India included. In 2000, the company opened a bottling plant in Kerala, a region in southern India (Gupta & Jaiswal, 2013). The company drew more than half a million liters of water daily from open wells which were used in the production of the beverage. However, the underground water started to deplete raising the alarm among the residents (Bywater, 2014). Women complained that the company had overexploited the underground water forcing them to walk many kilometers to look for water and also their children could not attend school so that they could take the roles of the women. The activities led to food reduction since the locals lacked enough water and time to attend their rice and coconuts.
Apart from causing water scarcity, the company’s activities also led to water scarcity further aggravating the situation. To produce a liter of soda, the company required more than three liters of fresh water. The fresh water was thus contaminated after the process then released into the system (Shirodkar & Mohr, 2015). The contaminated water and other solid wastes were carelessly dumped into the water sources enabling hazardous substances to find their way into the environment. The water in Kerala, therefore, became unhygienic to drink and bathing with it resulted in skin burning. The contaminated water also led to food scarcity since it could not be used in rice farms that are water dependent.

An assessment on the issue was done, and Coca-Cola continued its ethical practice. The company was not willing to participate in the assessment, and also it did not share the results of the assessment in spite of claiming to be transparent (Singh et al., 2016). The company also failed to meet its own and government standards and did not adhere to the recommendations agreed.
References
Bywater, K. (2014). “Coca-Cola Quit India”: Resisting Corporate Social Responsibility as a Global Management Strategy. In Global Management, Local Resistances (pp. 110-128). Routledge.
Gupta, S., & Jaiswal, A. K. (2013). Making the case for harming the poor–A review of marketing tactics at the bottom of the pyramid. Journal of Applied Business and Economics, 14(5), 30-40.
Shirodkar, V., & Mohr, A. T. (2015). Resource tangibility and foreign firms’ corporate political strategies in emerging economies: Evidence from India. Management International Review, 55(6), 801-825.
Singh, B. J. R., & Kaur, M. P. (2016). Corporate social responsibility in India. International Journal of Higher Education Research & Development, 1(1).