To complement my last week’s blog post, which talked about great generation Z activists, I looked at examples of activist acts. Activism can be defined as the act of seeking to bring about political or social change
Using the example of the Coca-Cola company, on which I am writing an essay for my Ethics Issues and Crisis Management module, I found two original and thought-provoking examples of activists fighting against plastic pollution from the big company.
The Coca Cola Company is a beverage corporation, the UK's most selling brand. With over 2.9 million tonnes of plastic waste per year , it has been voted Top Plastic Polluter for several years running.
Faced with this, activists have decided to act in order to raise awareness of the great environmental problem we face today and to put pressure on the big company, which has the influence and the financial means to change things and make progress in terms of sustainable development.
In April 2017, some activists from the non-for-profit organisation Greenpeace placed a 2.5 tons sculpture outside the entrance to the Coca-Cola offices in London. The sculpture depicted a seagull choking and spitting out plastic interrupting a good time with the family on the beach. A spokesperson from the big company stated to CNN that Coca Cola was disappointed in the act as the company was trying to develop their sustainability program at the moment: “World Without Waste”.
Two other activists had the idea of discreetly replacing the labels on Coca-Cola bottles in supermarkets in the south of the UK with similar labels, but with strong messages such as "Choking Dolphin", "Retching Turtle" and "Strangled Seabird". The project aims to raise awareness about plastic pollution and denounce Coca-Cola for the plastic pollution it creates.
Photo from Stop Being Tossers
The 2.5-ton sculpture may seem like a crazy idea, but it means a lot. I personally attribute the message "This sculpture is heavy and annoying, but nothing compared to the weight of plastic pollution today".
The new labels by Martin Lindley and Ed Tuddenham from the Stop Being Tossers campaign may also seem banal, but they have a great effect. Indeed, it’s embarrassing to drink a beverage with a label expressing that the drink and its packaging are destructive so it can help to shock and raise awareness.
In conclusion, I find these two examples of environmental activism towards Coca-Cola very interesting. I even think that they are very good ideas to denounce the problem of plastic pollution which is becoming more and more serious nowadays. It seems that Coca Cola has been affected by these acts, especially by the sculpture. However, I think it's a shame that I didn't hear about it before today, and I asked some friends and they didn't hear about it either. So maybe these actions didn't reach the general public, could it be a lack of promotion or is it intentional on the part of the activists?
Thank you for reading my post, I would love to hear your thoughts about these exemples of activism, and I'd be happy to discover other examples!
Sources:
https://inews.co.uk/news/meet-the-advertising-execs-moonlighting-as-anti-plastic-campaigners-1187673